Transdisciplinary approaches to integrating inclusivity and sustainability in teacher education

Abstract

Research in Southern Africa has shown that teacher education is currently fragmented into discrete modules or policy priorities. This status poses a recognised challenge in education as it sets up Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and inclusive education as competing agendas that are typically addressed separately. In response, this study investigated how transdisciplinary research in education, understood as the co-production of knowledge among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, can help to address the interconnected challenges of inclusivity, sustainability and teacher preparedness in complex teaching and learning settings. The study focused on the Sustainability Starts with Teachers programme in Malawi, Tanzania and Eswatini to provide an empirical and reflective account of implementing a transdisciplinary approach in teacher education. A formative interventionist design, located in a critical realist philosophy and operationalised through a nested case study methodology in interviews and workshops, was used to investigate how teacher educators enact inclusion-oriented ESD. Through bioecological and sociocultural theoretical analysis, the results showed that collaborative and context-responsive engagement supports teacher educators in aligning policy aspirations with classroom realities. This alignment entails that inclusivity and sustainability are intertwined because inclusive pedagogies strengthen the equity of sustainability initiatives while sustainability education enhances the transformative potential of inclusive teaching. Transdisciplinary Contribution: The key outcome of the study was the Sustainable Inclusive Pedagogical Proficiency Process (SIP3) model. The SIP3 model actualises transdisciplinary collaboration to drive systemic educational change through interconnected processes of social and ecological transformation.