The Future of Education

The purpose of this presentation is to explore didactic possibilities for developing knowledge about the relationship between ecological, economic and social sustainable development based on narratological analysis of a Swedish picture book: Mitt bottenliv – av en ensam axolotl (Life at the Bottom – from a Lonely Axolotl, 2020), by Linda Bondestam. The research question is: How can the narratological concept of voice be didactically useful for the readers of the picture book to be able to position themselves in relation to the content of the book and the surrounding society? The analysis of the book shows that it is impossible to distinguish ecological conditions from economic and social circumstances, and that becoming a subject does not necessarily lead to emancipation. In connection with this, the analysis shows that the voices of the book - if seen as part of a public discourse where teaching is included - can be twisted together and develop into a communal voice through the voices of students. It is through the process of positioning, by making use of the interpretive potential of the picture book, that the possibilities for developing knowledge about the relationship between ecological, economic and social sustainability are to be found.

Keywords ecological sustainability, economic sustainability, social sustainability, picture books, narratology, didactics 

References
Beauvais, C. (2015). The Mighty Child. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Bondestam, L. (2020). Mitt bottenliv – av en ensam axolotl. Berghs förlag.
Bruner, J. (2002). The Culture of Education. Harvard University Press.
Bylund, L. & Knutsson, B. (2020). The Who? Didactics, differentiation and the biopolitics of inequality. Utbildning & demokrati, 29(3), 89–102.
Evans, J. (Ed.). (2015). Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks. Creative and Critical Responses to Visual Texts. Routledge.
Garrard, G. (2012). Ecocriticism. Routledge.
Genette, G. (1980). Narrative Discourse. Blackwell.
Goga, N. & Guanio-Uluru, L. (2019). Ecocritical perspectives on Nordic children’s and young adult literature. Økokritiske perspektiver på nordisk børne- og ungdomslitteratur. Barnelitterært forskningstidskrift. 10(1).
Kovač, S. N. (2018). Picturebooks and narratology. In: B. Kümmerling-Meibauer (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks (s. 409–419). Routledge.
Lanser, S. S. (1992). Fictions of Authority. Women Writers and Narrative Voice. Cornell University Press.
Nikolajeva, M. (2010). Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers. Routledge.
Stephens, J. (1992). Language and ideology in children’s fiction. Pearson. UNESCO. (2017). Education for sustainable development goals. Learning objectives (www.en.unesco.org). Paris: UNESCO.