ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
This article is part of the Research TopicEducational Leadership and Sustainable DevelopmentView all 25 articles
Between Vision and Barriers: A Qualitative Study on School Leadership and ESD Implementation in Germany
Provisionally accepted
- 1Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany
- 2Padagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg, Ludwigsburg, Germany
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This study explores how school leaders in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, perceive and enact their role in the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) within the framework of the Whole School Approach (WSA). Using a qualitative research design, we conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven school leaders from various school types. Thematic analysis identified five core dimensions shaping ESD implementation – vision, leadership, curriculum, resources, and communication – derived from the WSA and strongly reflected in participants' narratives. In addition, an inductively identified cross-cutting theme – leaders' understanding of ESD – emerged as central to how they engaged with all other dimensions. A notable contribution of this study is its nuanced documentation of leadership as a balancing act between aspiration, delegation, and constraint navigation. While school leaders expressed openness to sustainability, their engagement was often fragmented and environmentally focused. The study highlights the gap between policy ambition and school-level practice and underscores the need for leadership development, institutional support, and structural flexibility to realize the holistic aims of the WSA.
Keywords: Education for Sustainable Development, qualitative research, school development, School leadership, Whole InstitutionApproach
Received: 26 Aug 2025; Accepted: 15 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wohlfart, Scholz and Wagner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Olivia Wohlfart
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