Beyond Borders: A Typological Approach to Understand Sustainability Education Governance

Abstract

Sustainability education governance plays a vital role in advancing global environmental and social goals, yet its institutional forms vary widely across countries and regions. While international frameworks such as SDG 4.7 and UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) provide broad objectives, the ways in which sustainability education is governed—from policy design to stakeholder engagement—remain fragmented and under-theorised. This paper develops a three-dimensional typological framework to classify and analyse governance configurations in sustainability education, based on (1) the degree of policy centralisation, (2) the level of stakeholder inclusion and (3) the dominant regulatory-market orientation. Through this framework, we identify recurring governance patterns—such as state-centric regulation, participatory co-governance and hybrid public-private models—each of which entails distinct strengths and trade-offs in terms of coherence, adaptability and equity. Drawing on illustrative cases, we demonstrate how these configurations shape the implementation, funding and legitimacy of sustainability education. The typology serves as both a diagnostic tool for assessing existing systems and a heuristic for designing governance arrangements that are context-sensitive, inclusive and resilient. Rather than advocating a single best model, we argue for flexible and adaptive governance frameworks that acknowledge the dynamic, contested nature of sustainability education and respond to evolving socio-environmental challenges. We conclude by identifying future research directions, particularly the need to examine governance transitions and cross-sectoral coordination over time.