Pupils’ cooperatives and the acquisition of competences for sustainable development

About 20 years ago Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) became a new educational aim for secondary school education in Germany (Programm Transfer 21). 14 different ESD learning arrangements were experimentally tested from 2002 to 2005 in secondary schools. School firms ranked highest (BLK Transfer 21 (Eds.) 2005). However, school firms for ESD for some time only developed in Niedersachsen, where they had originally been tested in said experiment. Work in these centred on ethical and resource efficient interactions with the social, economic and ecological environment (de Haan/Grundmann/Plesse 2009: 64-65). Pupils’ cooperatives (PC) are special school firms, modelled on the German real world cooperative modus including quasi-registration, annual audit, partnership with realworld coops etc. Some ESD school firms have existed before transforming into pupils cooperatives, while others have been started in a cooperative manner right away. The waiting list of ESD School firms wanting to become PC is long, but the promoting cooperative federations usually limit the numbers newly accepted each year. Examples of PC’s business ideas are making string puppets and performing with them, felting sheep wool, bee keeping, the making of apple juice, breeding of mushrooms, building steel barbecues, running computer courses for senior citizens, catering, event management and so forth. Business ideas thus are not much different to those of other school firms focused on ESD. The attractiveness of the cooperative form seems to be linked to initiators believing that the cooperative way of organizing is particularly conducive to ESD. The objective of this paper is to screen the results of three rounds of scientific project evaluation so far undertaken in Niedersachsen and Nordrhein-Westfalen in regard to this belief. Using a mixed method approach these evaluations identify the most significant factors driving this belief. Furthermore they detail the self-assessment of pupils and teachers in regard to the acquisition of competencies, verify the degree to which PCs work cooperatively and shed light on the interactions between PCs and “grown-up” partner coops. The paper discusses the relevance of these aspects and outlines further (comparative) research needs.