Dealing with the Intangible: Using the Analytical Lens of Hidden Curricula for a Transformative Paradigm of Sustainable Higher Education

Abstract

There is a broad consensus that universities have the potential to act as drivers of education for sustainable development (ESD) and constitute fundamental vehicles to explore, test, develop and communicate conditions for necessary socio-ecological transformations. This goes hand in hand with stronger acknowledgment of the societal role of universities and the related need for a new transformative paradigm of sustainable higher education. Before such a paradigm can be established, before higher education can be transformative, universities themselves must be transformed. Despite various pioneer projects and frontrunners of sustainable universities, real transformations are still rare though.