A comparative review of policy and practice for education for sustainable development/education for global citizenship (ESD/GC) in teacher education across the four nations of the UK

Introduction

The focus of international efforts to improve education has shifted from ‘access to’ education as embedded within Education for All and the education-related Millennium Development Goals, towards ‘quality of’ education. Furthermore, the 2015 World Education Forum concluded the latter is characterised by ‘the skills, values and attitudes that enable citizens to lead healthy and fulfilled lives, make informed decisions, and respond to local and global challenges through education for sustainable development and global citizenship education (ESD/GC)’ (UNESCO, 2015). The agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) clearly demand collaboration among educators internationally to better understand how education as a public good can more effectively nurture peace, tolerance, sustainable livelihoods and human fulfilment for all, renewing attention on the place of ESD/GC within teacher education.

Nearly two decades ago, only a small number of teacher education courses across the world were found to promote ESD/GC explicitly (Tye, 1999). Despite a number of initiatives taking place in the UK since 2000 which sought to ‘embed’ a global perspective in teacher education (Barr, 2005), the quantity and quality of ESD/GC provision in teacher education was found to be patchy (Hunt at al., 2011). More recent research has found that the picture has remained inconsistent (HEA, 2014). For instance, an explicit statutory requirement for inclusion of ESD/GC in Wales and Scotland, as detailed in this paper, has ensured that provision has been particularly enhanced in these nations.

Irrespective of these local and regional contexts, international calls for teacher education to promote forms of ESD/GC have never been greater. For instance, following the end of the United Nations Decade of ESD (UNDESD) in 2014, the UNESCO Roadmap for implementing a Global Action Programme on ESD identifies one of five priority action areas to be ‘building capacities of educators and trainers to more effectively deliver ESD’ (UNESCO, 2014a: 15). This includes an expected outcome that ESD will become integrated into pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes. Global policy discourse sympathetic to ESD/GC is also evident in that the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment, run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, will include measurement of global competence – assessing a 15 year olds awareness of the interconnected global world we live and work in and their ability to deal effectively with the resulting demands.

In the UK, education policy is now devolved both administratively and territorially, yet ESD/GC practice is also supported by central Government. For example, the Global Learning Programme (GLP) is funded by the Department for International Development (DfID) across the four nations. Despite this element of coordination across the UK, a UNESCO report found that there was ‘no coherent view at policy or practice level about how ESD can most appropriately be experienced by learners’ (UNESCO, 2013: 22). It recommended a pan-UK strategic framework to ‘scale-up and build on existing good practice’ and ‘prevent duplication in a time of austerity’ (UNESCO 2013: 22). Through exploring aspects of divergence and convergence in teacher education and in related ESD/GC policy and practice, this article seeks to better understand the current situation across the UK.

The context of teacher education across the four nations

All four nations of the UK are in a period of significant, and in some cases apparently irrevocable, change in the field of education in general and teacher education in particular. This article reviews the implications, both actual and potential, of such rapid and wholesale change in the sector. These consequences are not just relevant to teacher educators and those directly associated with the profession but also to the wider population; the supply and quality of teachers and the health of the teaching profession are of direct interest and relevance to the whole of society. Moreover, the nature of teacher education reflects differing views on the purpose of education and the value governments and society attaches to it. This paper will investigate the differences in how teacher education is conceptualised and governed in each of the four nations and the implications for ESD/GC policy and practice.

In comparing the current context of UK teacher education, England is a significant outlier (Beauchamp et al., 2015), as a consequence of a political desire to re-frame teacher education as craft-based training. Whilst education is always subject to keen political attention, the change of UK government in 2010 heralded a raft of policy initiatives that have arguably permanently changed the nature of school and teacher education in England. There has been an ideological shift towards smaller and less directive central governance, providing more responsibilities and opportunities for institutions at a local level – for example, for schools as regards curriculum design and staffing.

In particular, teacher education has been subject to a concerted shift from university to school-led provision with the majority of teacher training places now led by schools. The marginalisation of universities from teacher education is not necessarily new: 80 years ago Fred Clarke, the second Director of the Institute of Education in London, made a withering attack on the creation of training colleges that diverted attention from the study of education ‘degrading them into drill-squads under a professor-sargeant’ (Clarke, 1918/1922: 134). Nevertheless, these recent changes to teacher education have already reduced the status of research-informed teacher education in England with ‘the knowledge base for teaching often defined as practical, relevant and focused around contemporary, experiential knowledge of schooling’ (Beauchamp et al., 2015: 159). As a result, the majority of undergraduate initial teacher education (ITE) provision has already become three, rather than four, year courses. This has reduced the space for engagement with research-informed knowledge or study of the foundational disciplines of education (such as history, philosophy, psychology and sociology) and new cognate fields deriving from these. A resultant concern for advocates of ESD/GC is how this reduces possibilities for promoting alternative perspectives that challenge the status quo in terms of practice and also fails to prepare teachers for exploring controversial issues such as terrorism and climate change.

Wales’ weakening performance in Programmes for International Student Assessments (PISA) (OECD, 2009, 2012) has led to a series of reviews and reports into the state of Welsh education in order to drive up standards across the sector (Donaldson, 2015; OECD, 2014; Tabberer, 2013). Echoing the Schools White Paper in England titled ‘The Importance of Teaching’, the Welsh Government’s education improvement plan has identified ‘excellent teaching’ (Welsh Assembly Government, 2014: 4) as the pivotal influence on the quality of education. A natural corollary to this argument has been a renewed focus upon initial teacher education. The recommendations of these reviews, explored further in this article, include the expansion of the school-led Teach First Programme, established in 2013, and the employment-based Graduate Teacher Programme.

The Scottish Government also commissioned a review of initial and ongoing teacher education, in 2009, encompassing selection, initial and early career education, continuing professional development and leadership (Donaldson, 2011). The ambition for teaching in Scotland to become a ‘Masters level profession’ has been accompanied by a focus on ongoing professional development. In stark contrast to moves in England towards ‘craft’ and ‘technician’ approaches, Donaldson argued student teachers should be challenged to ‘take them beyond any inclination, however understandable, to want to narrow training of immediate and direct relevance to life in the classroom’ (Donaldson, 2011: 6). As a result there have been no moves towards school-led or employment based routes in Scotland: universities remain the sole providers of ITE. Furthermore, in Scotland and Wales it has been recommended that the BA education undergraduate route into teaching is a four year course with at least 50% of this time devoted to the study of a relevant subject to degree level. This followed criticism of ‘an over-emphasis on technical and craft skills at the expense of broader and more academically challenging areas of study’ (Donaldson, 2011: 39).

Since the restoration of devolved powers to Northern Ireland in 2007 there have also been reviews of teacher education (DEL, 2013; DENI, 2010) alongside a steady decline in numbers of student teacher places. There have been no moves yet towards school-led teacher training. The pathway into teaching in the region remains through a four year BEd degree or an alternative degree, such as a BA with the Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). The pluralistic nature of the teacher training system has meant that the five providers that facilitate specialist teacher training work on the basis of curriculum studies supplemented by subject studies which have the opportunity to engage in ESD/GC in a more dedicated manner.

To date there is little evidence on how far the policy differences discussed above are reflected in the mediation and enactment of teacher education across the UK (Beauchamp et al., 2015). This paper provides evidence in relation to provision for ESD/GC, with a focus on underpinning professional standards/competencies, values and ideologies, curriculum and pedagogy and the role of the third sector.

Methodology

This paper presents findings of a cross-national review of ESD/GC policy and practice relating to teacher education in the UK. On the basis that different processes and dynamics of change exist within education policy and practice across the four countries, our analysis was aligned with ‘home international’ comparison (Raffe and Byrne, 2005). In recognising the disconnection between public discourses, policy development and implementation, our approach is also informed by Deliberative Policy Analysis (DPA) (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003). This enabled us to attend to the role of policy networks and multiple actors involved in forming, mediating and enacting policy and practice.

This research has included analysis of the teacher’s standards/competences, statutory requirements for ITE and guidance related to ESD/GC in each of the four nations. This draws upon government sources including the Department for Education in England; the Department for Education and Skills in Wales; the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) (prior to 2007) and Scottish Government (since 2007); the Department of Education (DENI) and the Department of Employment and Learning (DEL) in Northern Ireland. It also involved analysis of the frameworks and published reports of the school inspectorates in each nation (Ofsted, Estyn, HMIE/Education Scotland, and the Education and Training Inspectorate Northern Ireland). Guidance documents from professional bodies for teachers such as the General Teaching Councils and practical support for ESD/GC from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Oxfam and localised support from regional Development Education Centres were also considered. Whilst the primary focus here is upon the UK, we have necessarily attended to the global policy discourse related to ESD/GC including the published reports of UNESCO and the European Union (EU).

There has been much debate regarding the terminology used with ESD/GC (see, for example, Martin et al., 2010; Jickling, 2004; Sterling, 2001). An expanded conceptualisation for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) incorporates the ‘means, tools and processes’ needed for people to develop the knowledge, skills and values to enable them to contribute towards a sustainable society (Leal Filho, 2015: 4). This implies the inclusion of a global citizenship (GC)/global education/global learning element or, as is the case for Wales, GC is made explicit with the adoption of the notion of ESD/GC. Furthermore, Scotland uses the term ‘Learning for Sustainability’, specifically encompassing outdoor learning in addition to ESD/GC. This article does not seek to debate the many differing definitions of ESD/GC, beyond noting that although different terminology is often used in this field, the underlying principles and practices are often quite similar. For consistency ESD/GC will be used throughout this paper with some of the debate regarding meaning expanded upon in what follows.

Professional standards/competences

All four nations have developed professional standards/competencies as the foundation for assuring the quality of teaching, yet reference to ESD/GC varies. Scotland’s recently revised professional standards are underpinned by ‘values, sustainability and leadership’ (General Teaching Council for Scotland, 2013: 2) at various career stages. Academics, practitioners and the third sector, through the One Planet Working Group, played an important role in ensuring ‘Learning for Sustainability’ has become embedded in this way.

Welsh professional standards, revised in 2011, refer to the development of citizenship in learners within the leadership standards, but a focus on ESD/GC is not as embedded as in Scotland. Nevertheless, support for ESD/GC is demonstrated by the 2006 ‘ESD/GC Strategy for Action’ and its updates (Welsh Assembly Government, 2008a; 2009). For instance, material for teacher trainees and new teachers is also provided (Welsh Assembly Government, 2008b, 2008c). The standards to qualify as a teacher in Wales include the requirement to promote and create ESD/GC opportunities (Education Wales, 2009). However, it has been noted that these standards currently have no links to the practising teacher standards (Furlong, 2015). A review is therefore underway to align qualifying and practising teacher standards in Wales to support progression, as is already the case in Scotland.

Currently, emphasis on ESD/GC is not as apparent in the English and Northern Ireland professional standards. In England the standards relating to personal and professional conduct include a focus on mutual respect and tolerance of the rights of others (DfE, 2011: 14). There is no explicit mention of sustainability and no evidence that ESD/GC could be described as a core philosophy in a similar vein to the Scottish or even Welsh standards. Similarly, in Northern Ireland, although the 27 competences include an expectation that the teacher is ‘reflective’ and an ‘activist’, the focus on understanding diversity and developing communities provide only minimal reference to any underpinning notion of sustainability (General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland, 2011).

The focus of quality assurance bodies, such as educational inspectorates, provides an indication of the relative importance of ESD/GC and can be an important mechanism to sustain and improve practice. Given the variances in professional standards described above, it is no surprise that the focus and guidance on ESD/GC across inspectorates vary. Education Scotland has embedded ‘Learning for Sustainability’ in the revised self-evaluation tool for schools (Education Scotland, 2015) with the expectation that schools ‘increase learning for sustainability’ (Education Scotland, 2015: 7) and this will be used as the basis for school inspections in Scotland from August 2016. The Welsh inspection framework has included the promotion of ESD/GC since 2004 and actively supported embedding ESD/GC (Estyn, 2006). More recently Estyn published ESD/GC guidance (Estyn, 2013) and in 2014 recommended further ESD/GC training in schools (Estyn, 2014: 5).

In England, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) currently inspects aspects of citizenship in schools as part of ‘spiritual, moral, social and cultural development’ (SMSC) (Ofsted, 2015: 36) with schools also expected to promote Fundamental British Values. Until recently schools were given a discrete judgement on their promotion of community cohesion and Ofsted have also previously provided thematic reports on ESD as part of the National Framework for Sustainable Schools (Ofsted, 2009).

In Northern Ireland, ‘The World around Us’ (WAU) is the thematic primary school curriculum component most closely aligned to ESD/GC. The Education Training Inspectorate (ETI) have highlighted the tension around the place of content/knowledge in a ‘skills-infused curriculum’ (ETI, 2008: 7) and demanded a response from teacher training institutions. Similarly, a more recent evaluation of the implementation of WAU in schools (ETI, 2015) highlighted the need to re-emphasise the importance of WAU in policy and planning for initial teacher education (ETI, 2015: 8), although this is in relation to science and technology rather than specific aspects of sustainability.

Values and ideologies

Policy and practice related to ‘values in education’ have become increasingly prominent across the four regions of the UK. Arguably the most significant government intervention in presenting an ideological position on the issue of values induction was the 1944 Education Act. This introduced the expectation that education authorities would contribute towards the ‘spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of the community’ (Education Act, 1944: Pt. 2, section 7). This was extended in the 1988 Education Reform Act with the statutory requirement that the school curriculum should ‘promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and of society’ (Education Reform Act, 1988: section 1.2a). In England and Wales schools are now inspected on their provision for pupil development and well-being, including SMSC.

Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development remains enshrined in recent official legislation across the UK (Peterson et al., 2014: 6) although the themes emphasised within each of the nations have been strongly influenced by the political nuances of the respective educational regions. This is most obvious in Northern Ireland, where peace building has become a prominent feature of curriculum development and school culture; likewise in Wales, the nurturing of bilingualism and sustainable development have been prioritised. In England the SMSC requirement is being used as a vehicle to promote Fundamental British Values as part of the UK government’s approach towards tackling extremism.

Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) in 2004 enunciated, for the first time, a formal set of underpinning values for the curriculum: wisdom; justice; compassion; and integrity (Wisely et al., 2010: 234). Scotland is also unique in having a set of professional values that underpin what it means to be a teacher; these include social justice, integrity, trust and respect. There is also an explicit expectation that professionalism demands asking ‘critical questions of educational policies and practices and to examine our attitudes and beliefs’ (General Teaching Council for Scotland, 2013).

Cross-cutting all four nations is the promotion of ‘active citizenship’ and ‘cultural awareness’ and a recognition that issues from ‘the wider world’ impact locally. The introduction of the GLP, across the UK, has led to increased prominence for issues pertinent to ESD/GC (such as rights, gender and climate change) and indeed universal values (McCloskey, 2015: 302–320) that support SMSC and citizenship education. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the support offered by the GLP is directed primarily at school level provision rather than formal ITE.

Curriculum and pedagogy

Comparison of curriculum and pedagogy in teacher education is inevitably informed by developments in schools. The international ESD agenda has informed curriculum developments in Scotland and Wales in recent years. Learning for sustainability (LfS) and GC are cross-cutting themes in Scotland’s CfE which provides an overarching philosophical, pedagogical and practical framework for embedding ESD/GC in the school curriculum (Martin et al., 2013: 1530). Sustainability has also been a key driver in Wales where ESD/GC is explicitly linked to the National Curriculum and promoted through Personal Social Education (PSE) (Estyn, 2013).

In Northern Ireland the history of conflict and peace building are reflected in cross-curricular themes such as WAU, Personal Development and Mutual Understanding and Learning for Life and Work (incorporating local and global citizenship). This is in stark contrast to England where all official guidance and support for ESD/GC has been withdrawn since 2010. Furthermore, the Minister of State for Schools in England advocates accelerating the shift towards ‘knowledge-based teaching’ (Gibb, 2015: 18) which reduces the opportunities for pedagogical approaches that support ESD/GC. SMSC does however afford a number of entry points for incorporating ESD/GC; for example, through investigating moral and ethical issues or appreciating different cultures. There is evidence however that SMSC remains marginalised in schools (Peterson et al., 2014: 2). The duty for schools and those in teacher education, in England to promote Fundamental British Values (DfE, 2014) has provoked debate and concerns about how this requirement is translated into practice (Burns, 2015). Nevertheless, the British values agenda has, perhaps ironically, opened up a space to explore educational responses to diversity at the local, national and global level. Existing research suggests that teacher education could offer a lead in this area (Jerome and Clemitshaw, 2012).

There is evidence among teacher education providers in all four nations of the UK of institutional responses to ESD/GC based around key concepts such as values, human rights and active citizenship (Hunt et al., 2011), although specific impact upon the teacher education curriculum appears limited. Where this occurs, it is more likely to be with regards to subject-specific curriculum, narrowly focused on subjects such as geography. The same survey of teacher education providers across the UK found there was only implicit, if any, focus on ESD/GC within formal teaching practice (Hunt et al., 2011). Our own analysis suggests this lack of focus has persisted in some contexts. For instance, the monitoring of ESD/GC in Wales (Estyn, 2014) prioritises the development of understanding of ESD/GC concepts, with less apparent focus on teaching pedagogy. In contrast, Scotland’s CfE does include guidance on pedagogical approaches that support ESD/GC such as co-operative, collaborative and outdoor learning. Similarly, the cross-curricular themes for schools in Northern Ireland have, since 2007, been underpinned by curriculum guidance which identifies ‘learning intentions’, skills and capabilities and suggested activities to promote these (CCEA, 2015). Case studies of pedagogical approaches used in all four countries (HEA, 2014) highlight the importance of collaboration between teacher education providers and NGOs, as will be discussed further in the next section. Particular strategies such as Philosophy for Children are increasingly drawn upon, influenced by growing evidence of impact on learning and attitudes/values relevant to ESD/GC (Gorard et al., 2015).

The role of the third sector

Historically, much of the work to promote ESD/GC in the UK was undertaken by NGOs working in the areas of environmental, sustainable development, development, human rights, peace and other adjectival educations. Many initiatives and award schemes operated by NGOs form the basis of current ESD/GC practice in schools. Successful UK-wide award schemes such as Eco-Schools, Fairtrade Schools, International Schools, John Muir Award, Duke of Edinburgh Award, and Rights Respecting Schools have attracted wide participation in schools throughout the UK. Most are considered to be bench-marking activities for the success of schools in areas related to ESD/GC.

Large international NGOs, such as Oxfam and the World Wide Fund for Nature, have reduced their engagement with ESD/GC policy over the last 5 years or so, although they are still involved in supporting practice (Atkinson and Wade, 2015). The last decade has seen a reduction in possible funding streams, exacerbated by the financial crisis which began in 2008. This has led to the closure of a number of Development Education Centres in England and Wales, although the Centre for Global Education in Belfast and the six DECs in Scotland have remained open. The latter are now reliant on funding from the Scottish Government, DfID and the EU.

The GLP, funded by the DfID, supports schools to embed global learning in the curriculum and wider school life. It aims to provide specialist support and professional development for at least fifty per cent of schools across the UK by 2018, with a particular focus on pupils aged 7 to 14. This programme involves third sector organisations such as the International Development Education Association for Scotland and the Centre for Global Education in Belfast, and also consortia including third sector organisations and the private sector, such as Pearson in England and Mark-it in Wales. Similarly, the British Council’s UK-wide Connecting Classrooms Core Skills initiative, providing professional learning to enable teachers to deliver 21st century learning skills that will prepare young people for life and work is being delivered by a mix of third sector and private sector providers.

The response to the UN’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) (2005–2014) illustrates the differing and changing influence of third sector organisations across the four nations. For instance, Scotland’s response to the UNDESD was strengthened by the long-established culture of collaboration between government (including Members of the Scottish Parliament, civil servants and government agencies), academia, and third sector organisations to develop and implement policy. Two Action Plans for the Decade were co-ordinated centrally (Scottish Executive, 2005; Scottish Government, 2010), but developed collaboratively, and included ambitions and action for teacher education. The ‘One Planet Schools’ working group had membership drawn from third sector organisations, universities and government and has been succeeded recently by the Learning for Sustainability implementation group. This level of multi-stakeholder engagement in ESD/GC policy development has not been replicated elsewhere in the UK.

Beyond the UK, advocates for ESD/GC across Europe have been pro-active and successful in lobbying the EU institutions to formally integrate ESD/GC into EU specific educational and development policies and funding streams. ESD/GC projects that were funded directly by the EU between 2004 and 2012 resulted in 362 NGOs and 43 local authorities across the EU being allocated €256 million, covering a range of issues (EC, 2012: 12; Lappalainen, 2012: 74–78) many relating to teacher education. Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR) is now embedded within European policy. Up to 2016, €30 million per year has been spent on multi-layered, civil society-led, DEAR advocacy. This work has supported organisations such as DEEEP and CONCORD, and interventions such as Development Days and the Global Education Week that have directly influenced practice in the UK. Other emergent networks may also serve to strengthen collaboration between academia, government and civil society to advance ESD/GC policy and practice. For instance, the UN has recognised a number of Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE) in ESD in the UK, part of the growing global network of RCEs working to advance UNESCO’s planned Global Action Programme on ESD (UNESCO, 2014a).

Conclusion

The education sector across the UK continues to experience a period of rapid change. All four nations have reviewed their approaches to how teacher education is conceptualised and governed within the last decade. This paper substantiates accounts of divergence of policy and practice (Beauchamp et al., 2015) providing evidence in relation to ESD/GC. It concludes that ESD/GC has remained peripheral to teacher education in the four nations of the UK, with the possible exception of Scotland and Wales. While there has been movement towards ESD/GC informing the stated purposes of teacher education in Scotland, and less so Wales, there is evidence of a retreat in England. A particular concern for the field is the anti-intellectual Zeitgeist in England as demonstrated by the diminishing involvement of universities in teacher education.

Apart from the DfID funded GLP, the only evidence we found of a developing pan-UK strategy for ESD, as recommended by UNESCO (2013), involved the interventions of third sector organisations, sometimes with the support of the EU. At the same time, the impact of divergent approaches to ESD/GC is reflected in the changing role and status of NGOs that support ESD/GC in each of the nations. For example, the financial feasibility of some such groups in England and Wales is increasingly under question. Although ESD/GC has evolved through global institutional and civil society partnerships, this picture is now being complicated further by an increased role for multinational companies. For instance, Pearson Education Limited are the lead partner in delivering the GLP in England and have also been awarded the contract for developing the framework to measure global competence as part of PISA 2018. This raises a question about the efficacy of a multi-national company, with influence over education policy and provision in a number of countries, in supporting the aims of ESD/GC that include critical enquiry into global inequalities and a stance that challenges injustice.

Whilst highlighting the influence of the state, this paper demonstrates how global policy discourse continues to impact upon education at national, regional and local levels. For instance, radical changes to teacher education in England and Wales have been justified by relatively poor performance in international league tables. At the same time, Learning for Sustainability has been embedded at all levels of Scottish Education as a response to the UNDESD. While international initiatives such as the SDGs generate possibilities for future convergence in policy and practice, the differing responses to the UNDESD suggests these may in fact only serve to amplify differences across the four nations. Evidence of short-termism in England, as demonstrated by replacing the duty to promote community cohesion with the requirement to promote Fundamental British Values, is in stark contrast to the consistency of the Scottish Government’s more progressive response to UNDESD that has involved high levels of engagement across multi-stakeholders. In a similar way, the sustained focus on peace building provides the foundations for a more authentic engagement with ESD/GC in Northern Ireland.

The influence of the supra-territorial neo-liberal discourse that puts education in service to the knowledge economy is evident in the ESD/GC policy context. Many of the innovations analysed here are direct consequences of a market-driven, performance-focused and bureaucratic educational environment indicative of this ideology. For instance, the drive to raise standards in numeracy and literacy in England and Wales has already intensified the existing focus of ESD/GC upon short-term observable outcomes (see for example Estyn, 2014) rather than longer-term changes in behaviour, attitude and practice. This highlights the possible fragility of support for pedagogical approaches that support ESD/GC within teacher education and education more broadly. While SMSC development has been embedded within the educational landscape in the UK since 1944, the multiple interventions in ESD/GC policy and practice, particularly in the last two decades, raises the question of what, if any, changes have resulted from these innovations. Put together, this picture suggests the ways in which divergent policy for ESD/GC continues to be mediated and enacted within teacher education programmes and schools across the UK are worthy of further investigation.