Education for Sustainable Development: An Exploratory Survey of a Sample of Latin American Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is defined as the knowledge and skills 'needed to work and live in a way that safeguards environmental, social and economic wellbeing, both in the present and for future generations'. Skills for sustainable development include critical thinking, creative thinking, systems thinking and leadership. Over the last decades, there has been efforts across the world to embed ESD into the curriculum. In European Union (EU) countries, some higher education have made efforts to align education strategies with international and national ESD frameworks. A cursory review of the literature seems to indicate that dissemination and implementation of the international ESD frameworks in Latin America has been slow and sporadic. Although there are some signs to implement ESD into curricula of countries such as Brazil and Colombia, these practices have not been substantial or have not permeated higher education sustainable development strategies. This paper aims to explore the developments of ESD in Latin America. As a first step to explore these developments, it intends to survey and map the current ESD processes in eight higher education institutions of four Latin American Countries: Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The paper also aims to compare ESD developments with some leading EU higher education institutions in ESD with the view to develop a dialogue between the two regions. These will lead to strategies in which ESD processes can be adopted/adapted with benefits in both directions; it will also create, foster and develop mechanisms that will ensure a sustainable culture of ESD in higher education in both regions. Results of the exploratory survey of a sample of higher education institutions in Latin America are reported

Education for Sustainable Development: Emerging Themes from Adopters of a Declaration

“…This finding is consistent with structuration theory and supports other research revealing universities in Australia have demonstrated a propensity toward signification of environmental initiatives [11]. While there is research in other countries suggesting adoption of the TD is perceived positively in the local community [41,42], the comparatively higher adoption of TD in Australia may be reflective of rhetorical and structural distinctiveness in the culture. In general, however, the increasing and worrying evidence of the effects of human-induced climate change is tending to motivate rhetorical shifts, at least, for institutions in most parts of the world.…”

Higher education for sustainable development: actioning the global goals in policy, curriculum and practice

“…Whilst in North America, the achievement of SDGs such as SDG 4 has a strong focus on students, participants in South America argue that major attention needs to be paid to educators in higher education. Hernandez et al (2018) concluded that dissemination and implementation of international HEfSD frameworks in Latin America have been slow and sporadic. Although there are some signs to implement HEfSD into curricula in Brazil and Colombia, these practices have not been substantial or have not permeated higher Education institutions' sustainable development strategies per se.…”

Provision of education for sustainability development and sustainability literacy in business programs in three higher education institutions in Brazil, Colombia and Peru

“…2.1.3 Peru. Higher education in countries like Peru lacks a system of political frameworks for implementing sustainable development in HEI education programs (Hernandez et al, 2018). Despite this, promoting actions for sustainable development is increasingly a priority within the education sector (Shephard, 2008) and some efforts are gaining ground at Peruvian universities.…”

“…As some commentators have indicated, examples of ESD integration into curricula and academic literature are heavily biased toward European and North American perspectives. There is a clear absence of documentation which focuses on LA contexts (Blanco-Portela et al, 2018;Hern andez-Diaz et al, 2021;Hernandez et al, 2018;Leal Filho et al, 2018;Malheiros, 2019;Salvia and Brandli, 2021). A cursory review of Latin American (LA) HEIs indicates that these organizations have had rather a slow uptake of sustainable development in their teaching and research agendas-particularly in a comprehensive way.…”