The Effectiveness of Pluralistic Teaching Methods in Value Education: The Case of Swedish Upper Secondary School

Swedish educational policy mandates that all education – no matter what level or subject – should encompass and bring forth values of Swedish citizenship, regard for democracy, equity, and our common environment. However, when diving into the subject syllabi for Swedish upper-secondary levels, these overarching goals found in, amongst other policies, the national curriculum, often do not trickle down to syllabi levels, giving significant levels of discretion to the teacher to decide how and if they want to teach these, frequently tricky areas of socialization. Furthermore, to what extent citizenship education is effective at developing norms and values, or if such is mainly developed elsewhere (such as with/through family, friends, and media), is debated. This article follows one article focusing on Swedish educational policy and how such is written regarding the goals of citizenship education and one article focusing on how teachers interpret and apply citizenship education in the classroom. In this article, the focus is not on policy or interpretation but rather on the efficacy of citizenship education depending on its implementation. Through performing educational interventions in Swedish upper-secondary social studies classrooms, the article intends to explore the efficacy of three different methods of teaching collective action capability for sustainability: knowledge, confidence, and will to act for a sustainable society. The three methods explored in the article are: 1. A fact-based lecture on sustainability and collective action, the common pitfalls of collective action, and how we can bridge these. 2. A normative interactive teaching situation where the pupils will try roleplaying as political leaders trying to solve an environmental collective action problem together through compromise and bartering. 3. A pluralistic educational design where pupils will sit through a short introduction on collective action and environmental dilemmas, followed by playing a computer game designed on the basis of experimental learning (learning through being put in the situation that you are teaching about). Data will be gathered through 2 identical surveys that will be filled in before (approximately 2 weeks before) and directly after the lectures. Matching between the surveys will award knowledge on the efficacy of the teaching style for effective citizenship education. The article builds on theoretical insights from the field of collective action, gamification and serious games, and education for sustainable development/sustainability education.