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Session Submission Summary

Highlighted Session: Supporting Teachers to Curb the Polycrises through Education: Reimagining Teacher Professional Development for Peace and Socio-Ecological Justice

Sat, March 28, 4:30 to 5:45pm, Hilton, Floor: Lobby Level - Tower 3, Golden Gate 4

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

In 2021, the UNESCO Futures of Education report called for a renewed, shared purpose and new social contract for education in the midst of multiple intersecting global crises and growing fears about political, social, economic, and ecological collapse (UNESCO, 2021). Far from improving, these so-called polycrises (Jules & Salajan, 2025) are more acute today than ever. New geopolitical conflicts have emerged, while (international) solidarity is increasingly under pressure despite deepening inequities and economic instability. All against a background of an intensifying, yet woefully disregarded climate crisis.
Although education alone cannot fulfill the promise of curbing the polycrises, the UNESCO report and scholarship alike champion teachers as uniquely situated to bring about educational and social transformation (Bajaj, 2018; Davies, 2017; UNESCO, 2021). Yet if we want teachers to support future generations in becoming agents of social transformation, what does this mean for how we prepare and support teachers?
In most education systems, teacher education and training is first and foremost geared toward preparing teachers to deliver the core curriculum. While foundational skills remain essential, and play a transformative role in their own sense, a narrow focus on ‘foundational skills’ risks overlooking the broader purposes of education, which teachers may or may not acknowledge. Pre- and in-service teacher professional development programs also tend to overlook how the polycrises affect teachers themselves, offering little support to cope with it in their private and professional lives (e.g., see Henderson, 2025).
It follows that there is a need to reimagine teacher professional development (TPD) away from primarily focusing on improving narrowly defined learning outcomes towards preparing and supporting teachers to embrace critical, socio-emotional and action-oriented learning geared at curbing the polycrises. This reimagining begs many questions that we aim to address in this panel, including: What political and conceptual framing helps to orient these types of education and professional development? How does such transformative TPD differ from existing programs and from recent technical solutions for teaching, often in the form of structured pedagogy, which have strongly impacted the sector (Banerjee et al. , 2023; Saavedra, 2021)? To what extent can teaching the core curriculum and social transformation be approached in a more integrated way? How do teachers feel about taking up this responsibility, particularly when faced with coping with the consequences of the polycrises? What support do teachers feel they need?
Drawing first on geopolitical framing and global policy guidance, then on applied examples from the fields of climate action, peace education, inclusive education, and gender responsive pedagogy, this panel brings together layered perspectives on reimagining TPD as a space for transformative professional learning (Boylan et al., 2023) in global contexts. It combines insights from policy, practice, and academia, representing a multitude of methodological approaches and conceptual underpinnings.

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