This research is a synthesis of studies carried out in 18 countries to identify contributions of education for sustainable development (ESD) to quality education. Five common questions were used for the interviews in each country to solicit education leaders and practitioners’ views on the outcome and implementation of ESD. The analysis revealed that major themes repeated across the 18 studies, showing that ESD contributes in many ways to quality education in primary and secondary schools. Teaching and learning transforms in all contexts when the curriculum includes sustainability content, and ESD pedagogies promote the learning of skills, perspectives and values necessary to foster sustainable societies. The research also identified the need to integrate ESD across all subjects, to provide professional development for teachers to ensure ESD policy implementation and to adopt ESD management practices to support ESD in the curriculum in order to broaden ESD across countries.
The Brazilian Ministry of Sports organized a system of volunteers to receive the visitors during the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Football World Cup. The instructional material to capacitate these volunteers focused on environment and sustainability issues and it was developed in an integrative systemic framework supported by concept maps. The development procedures were organized in a hierarchical structure, addressing the main zero level, zero plus one level, zero minus one level and the subsequent downscaling levels. The main knowledge issues that were integrated were: biome concept, climate, biodiversity and endangered species, protected areas, public health, epidemiology, sanitation, sustainable tourism, social responsibility and local welfare. The instructional material was adapted to the virtual learning environment and the capacitation was concluded. This article highlights the use of concept maps for integrative planning and promoting an interdisciplinary approach to the environmental and sustainability issues related to tourism and health.
The article aims to explore the following question: ‘How is education for sustainable development and health education in schools approached and contextualized at a municipal level, and what contradictions and tensions might local structures imply for sustainable health promoting school development?’ Based on interviews with key agents at the municipal level in Denmark and drawing on a knowledge exchange network, the article identifies and discusses the following three themes across education for sustainable development and health education: (i) autonomy, engagement and ownership; (ii) open frameworks and invitations to ‘run with the ball’; and (iii) ad hoc professional development. A main conclusion in the article is that local approaches are largely based on plurality and voluntarism, and are formed around enthusiasts. There is a risk that this framework becomes so flexible that it ‘falls apart’ in the balance between rigidity and flexibility.
Education for sustainable development (ESD) espouses student-centred, transformative pedagogies that promote learning through active, participatory and experiential learning. Yet, traditional lectures provide limited opportunities for engaging students in such pedagogies. This article reports on the inclusion of sustainability pedagogies within the constraints of a traditional lecture to investigate the effect on pre-service teachers’ self-reported ESD self-efficacy. A quasi-experimental, pre–post test design with a non-randomized control group was applied whereby lectures in the treatment group adopted sustainability pedagogies, in addition to the more traditional teaching methods employed in both groups. While a significant improvement was observed in pre-service teachers’ ESD self-efficacy in both groups, there is no evidence to suggest that the inclusion of sustainability pedagogies is more effective for enhancing pre-service teachers’ ESD self-efficacy than traditional, teacher-centred pedagogies alone. Participants reported that an increase in their knowledge and understanding of sustainability concepts most strongly influenced their ESD self-efficacy.
Developmental social psychologist Albert Bandura’s 1961 Bobo doll experiments provide interesting insights for the field of education for sustainable development (ESD) today. This article discusses some of the implications Bandura’s model of learned aggression has for modelling learned unsustainability. These lessons are not limited to educational applications. The Bobo doll is, in some important respects, like a supply–demand model, for example. Comparing the Bobo doll with contemporary dominant knowledge systems and other Bobo doll-like artefacts produces interesting insights and lessons for educational and economics research design. New approaches for tackling contemporary unsustainability are suggested.