DECODING SUSTAINABILITY IN THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM. TEACHING STUDENTS HOW TO PROBLEMATIZE COMPLEX CONCEPTS

Abstract

This paper approaches the concept of “sustainability” in the context of healthcare systems by applying the strategy of Decoding the Disciplines. The strategy of Decoding the Disciplines aims to make the implicit accesses behind central concepts of a discipline transparent by decoding them systematically. The concepts that are to be decoded are specific bottlenecks which are seen as necessary conditions for appropriate learning. This paper illustrates how the process was approached in a seminar with students majoring in Political Science in Germany, and suggests that this might have increased students’ learning and changed their way of applying sustainability. Being a single-case study, findings should be treated with caution. However, the goal of this explanatory study is to start a broader exchange among scholars, encouraging them to make their implicit and often hidden assumptions explicit to the community. The strategy of Decoding could then be a valuable tool for bridging the gap between disciplinary boundaries and transdisciplinary sustainability science.