Art Universities as Transformative Actors in Education for Sustainable Development in the German Higher Education Landscape

On the Role of Artistic and Creative Approaches in Profound ESD Learning Processes

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_7How to use a DOI?

Keywords

ESD; Art Universities; artistic and creative approaches

Abstract

Although education for sustainable development (ESD) is receiving increasing attention in the academic discourse of German universities, its practical implementation is often primarily attributed to natural sciences, technology and social sciences (Barth & Rieckmann, 2016). In doing so, the inherent transformative potential of artistic and creative approaches, which extend beyond the more transfer of knowledge to encompass the development of practical skills, is frequently overlooked. However, ESD explicitly aims to promote critical and reflective thinking, stimulate emotional engagement and develop substantial visions for the future – areas in which purely cognitive and analytical methods are ineffective (UNESCO, 2017). This study examines the specific added value and strategic implementation approaches of art colleges in relation to anchoring and promoting ESD in the German higher education landscape. The focus is on two central research questions: (1) What distinct contributions do artistic and creative approaches make to the promotion of critical and reflective thinking, emotional engagement, and the development of well-founded visions for a sustainable society among students? (2) What specific strategies do art colleges pursue to integrate ESD into their curricula and establish sustainable educational practices? Methodologically, this study is based on qualitative triangulation, including a comprehensive analysis of student work and guided interviews with teachers and students. The results clearly demonstrate that art colleges develop and implement their own interdisciplinary, experimental and design-oriented strategies for embedding ESD. These include strengthening critical thinking, changing perspectives, deconstructing complex issues, managing complexity, developing a strong sense of self-efficacy, and thinking visionarily about the future.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Hamadou Ngoei
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/23
TI  - Art Universities as Transformative Actors in Education for Sustainable Development in the German Higher Education Landscape
BT  - Proceedings of the Conference of Growing up the Future: Education for Sustainability (GROUFES 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 73
EP  - 83
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_7
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_7
ID  - Ngoei2026
ER  -