The central reference point of the volume is Heinz-Joachim Heydorn's essay "Survival Through Education - Outline of a prospect" (1974), which was translated into English and subsequently made available to a broad public for the first time. Despite the time gap of almost 50 years, Heydorn's text is fascinating, because the survival of humanity - at least a qualitatively substantial survival of humanity - seems extremely questionable today. Researchers with different theoretical perspectives question the text on its contemporary content and put their interpretations up for discussion.

Education for sustainable development should enable people to think and act in a way that is fit for the future - in the face of challenges such as climate change, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, poverty and inequality. How can different disciplines address this task? In this volume, academic interdisciplinary contributions from philosophy, social sciences and education are complemented by transdisciplinary contributions from practical fields (e.g. museum education, journalism). The current contributions provide impulses for reflection and open up spaces for thinking in order to do justice to the complexity of the task of socio-ecological transformation.