Education for Sustainability Policies: Ramifications for Practice

Abstract

While it is well understood there is an urgent need to address global environmental problems, there is less understanding around how these problems can be addressed. At each level of government, policy is initiated as a response to a perceived problem. However, research has shown governmental policies are overly generalised which creates a universal approach, with little regard for contextual difference. This paper seeks to push back against unspoken assumptions surrounding Education for Sustainability (EfS) policy processes from development to implementation, showing that context is important in the interpretation of policy. Through a mixed method survey, the findings illustrate how EfS policies are often overloaded with infrastructure rather than educational benefits, minimising the policy objectives for sustainability as a cross-curricular priority. Three key points are raised to advocate for a new 'systems thinking' approach to policy implementation, with ramifications proposed to enable a more effective enactment of Education for Sustainability into curriculum.

Education for Sustainable Development: Evolution and Perspectives: A Bibliometric Review of Research, 1992–2018

“…The top 10 institutions added up to 20.15% citations from the total of articles in WoS, which confirmed their importance for ESD research. However, Australian institutions predominated, possibly because UNESCO's Decade of Education for Sustainable Development triggered the "agenda setting and concrete actions around sustainability and EfS" [96], making sustainability one of the three cross-curriculum priorities incorporated into the Australian Curriculum, into all learning areas and at all levels. Naturally, much research had to be done for ESD to be embedded efficiently and relevantly.…”

“…The highest frequency term was clearly ESD (516). If we left out the search terms (ESD (516), SE (163), and EfS (138)) together with S (300) and SD (288), the most frequent topics studied in the literature were: education (247), higher education (232), environmental education (219), university (146), knowledge (105), curriculum (98), science (96), attitudes (74), students (73), management (57), competences (51), framework (49), pedagogy (44), environment (39), challenges (39), future (38), teachers (38), policy (37), behavior (36), and engineering education (36).…”

The Differences across Future Teachers Regarding Attitudes on Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development

“…In the field of education, people may intervene as a social group to promote management and/or Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), given that social norms shape people's behaviour [28]. For instance, public institutions may be able to promote the social development of environmentally friendly competencies and actions through educational policies [29,30] within the context of government policies [31,32].…”

Students’ Perceptions of Interdisciplinary Coursework: An Australian Case Study of the Master of Environment and Sustainability

“…For the purposes of this case study, we are using the term "highly interdisciplinary" as distinct from less integrative "multidisciplinary" or "multisubject" approaches (more common in liberal arts degrees, for example), which are not explored here. Interdisciplinary pedagogy is recognized as highly valuable in sustainability, as are the related transdisciplinary, systems thinking and knowledge weaving approaches [12][13][14]. Each of these integrative, pluridisciplinary approaches aims to synthesize disciplines to varying extents for a more holistic and complex educational experience and worldview [1,12,13,15].…”

“…Interdisciplinary pedagogy is recognized as highly valuable in sustainability, as are the related transdisciplinary, systems thinking and knowledge weaving approaches [12][13][14]. Each of these integrative, pluridisciplinary approaches aims to synthesize disciplines to varying extents for a more holistic and complex educational experience and worldview [1,12,13,15]. Traditionally, relatively few interdisciplinary educational programs have included the breadth of domains or length of training appropriate for deeply embedding these integrative approaches.…”