Sustainability in Education: An Empirical Assessment of Systemic Integration and Organisational Practice

Transitioning to a socially just and environmentally safe development pathway necessitates considerable individual, social and societal learning. Education is hence routinely highlighted as a keystone in sustainable development. Yet contemporary education systems often tend to reproduce the very conditions that have led to unsustainability. A reorientation of education and learning towards sustainability has consequently not only been called for by scholars, practitioners and youth, but has also been committed to by various governments and international organisations. To monitor progress, identify challenges and enhance quality on the path towards a sustainable education, it is critical to rigorously assess its systemic integration, practice and outcomes. However, international monitoring to date has mostly relied on self-reporting by countries and educational leaders, which is prone to considerable bias. There is, therefore, a need for the development and large-scale application of meaningful, valid and reliable indicators for sustainability across all levels of education systems. While considerable work has focused on the micro-level of sustainability-related learning processes and outcomes, this dissertation responds to a lack of conceptualisation, operationalisation and large-scale assessments at the macro-level of systemic framework conditions (e.g., policies, curricula, resources) and the meso-level of organisational practice. Taking Germany as an exemplary case, the four individual studies included in this dissertation address these gaps by applying a multi-method approach to the development and application of relevant indicators. At the macro-level of systemic integration within the political and administrative framework conditions, an input-indicator for Sustainable Development Goal 4.7.1 – the mainstreaming of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in policies, curricula, training of educators and assessments – is developed and applied in the first study to over 11,000 documents from Germany (Holst, Singer-Brodowski, et al., 2024). Based on a combination of lexical document analysis and external expert evaluation, the study indicates that sustainability and ESD are mostly an “add-on” in the education system, yet have dynamically been taken up over a timespan of ten years. At the meso-level of educational institutions embedded in their regional contexts, a systematic review of the international literature on the Whole Institution Approach (WIA) offers a first conceptual synthesis to characterise WIAs to sustainability across different areas of education (Holst, 2023). Drawing on an analysis of 104 documents and a validating expert review, the synthesised WIA model includes five core principles (coherence, continuous learning, participation, responsibility, commitment), seven interconnected areas of action (governance, curriculum, campus, community, research, communication, capacity building), the underlying organisational culture as well as external conditions. The review contributes to a further operationalisation of the WIA for use in practice, policy-making and research. Building on this conceptual groundwork, the third study included in this dissertation introduces the development, testing, validation and first national-scale application of the WIA-Scale, an instrument to quantify the experience of sustainability as a WIA in organisational practice (Holst, Grund, & Brock, 2024). Based on a survey of 2,985 learners and educators in Germany, the study not only shows the measurability of WIAs, but that the experience of sustainability in line with a WIA appears to be highly effective in empowering learners and educators for sustainable development. The WIA-Scale is consequently suggested as a process-indicator for high-quality sustainability practice within and around educational institutions. Focusing on the largest formal area of education, the fourth study addresses sustainability within schools and the school system (Holst, Brock, et al., 2025). While the third study had examined sustainability through the lenses of learners and educators, the fourth is concerned with the perspectives of leaders. Based on a mixed-method analysis of data from 80 semi-structured interviews and a representative survey of 1,310 principals in Germany, the study shows a stark gap between a strong desire for sustainability in schools, and a considerably lower status quo. Assessing patterns in the descriptions of current practice, challenges and possible drivers, the analysis points to a focus on single and fragmented actions, frequent individualisation and diffusion of responsibility, a perceived lack of resources and a widespread paradigm of approaching sustainability as an addition rather than a core of quality education. Together, the four studies advance the conceptualisation of the systemic integration and organisational practice of sustainability in education, develop indicators for more valid and reliable assessments, provide national-scale data on the status and effectiveness of sustainability in education, and improve the knowledge base on possible implementation pathways. Linking the individual studies, a picture emerges of a more coherent sustainability integration being highly wished-for, likely effective, yet far from default – both in systemic framework conditions and organisational practice. Asking how to increase effectiveness, four overarching learnings for policy and practice are discussed, focusing on sustainability in education becoming more purposive, experiential, political and structural. Following a reflection on the overall contributions and limitations of the dissertation, implications for future research are derived, emphasising the link between sustainability and general quality education, further conceptual and empirical work on WIAs within and beyond formal education and potentials for transfer to other areas of social and societal learning.