Making sustainability in occupational therapy visible by relating to the Agenda 2030 goals – A case description of a Swedish university

Abstract

Occupational therapy has a lot to contribute to sustainable development considering the discipline's occupational focus and knowledge. This has been recognised by researchers and professional associations, but there is still a scarcity of research explicitly mentioning sustainability. Relevant contributions may be identified by relating education and research to the Agenda 2030 sustainable development goals. The aim of this article was to describe explicit and implicit inclusion of sustainable development and Agenda 2030 goals in occupational therapy education and research at one Swedish university. Current course syllabi and study guides, as well as research over the past five-year period, were examined and related to sustainability. The results showed that although only a few courses and articles were explicitly related to sustainable development, more course and research content became relevant when this content was compared with the sustainable development goals. It can be concluded that sustainability was more extensively addressed than first visible, but further studies including more universities are warranted.

Systematic Review of Sustainable Development Goals in Higher Education Institutions: First Five Years of Agenda 2030

“…The most important limitation is related to the local character of the studies, which are focused on a field of knowledge, population and context, institution, etc. (O'Keeffe, 2016;Cabral et al, 2019;Crespo et al, 2017;Valter & Costa, 2020;Albareda-Tiana et al, 2018;Smaniotto et al, 2019;Hirsu et al, 2020;Sanabria-Suárez et al, 2020;Esteban et al, 2020;Wagman et al, 2020). Moreover, several articles highlight the need for further studies.…”

“…The results show that there is no predominating focus among the analysed articles. There is a similar proportion regarding the studies focused on the curricular change and on the learning processes (25%) (Gutiérrez & Villatoro, 2018;Rodríguez et al, 2019;Slocum et al, 2019;Priyadarshini & Abhilash, 2020;Michalopoulou et al, 2019;Kioupi & Voulvoulis, 2020;Fleacă et al, 2018;Albareda-Tiana et al, 2018;Aleixo et al, 2020;Brugmann et al, 2019;Cruz et al, 2020;Blasco et al, 2020;Wagman et al, 2020), articles related to the development of action skills or commitment (28%) (Anzola, 2020;Sánchez Carracedo et al, 2017;Leal-Filho et al, 2019;Kazakova et al, 2020;Cabral et al, 2019;Crespo et al, 2017;Valter & Costa, 2020;Omisore et al, 2017;Manolis & Manoli, 2021;Dlouhá et al, 2019;Maruna, 2019;Hirsu et al, 2020;Chankseliani & Tristan, 2020;Sanabria-Suárez et al, 2020;Esteban et al, 2020;Neumann, 2018), articles focused on the systemic change in the organisation and learning of HEIs, that is, changes in how teaching is organised and changes in the way of teaching in universities (22%) (Cebrián, 2019;Saha et al, 2020;Rebelatto et al, 2019;Owens, 2017;Purcell et al, 2019;Anasi et al, 2018;Perović & Kosor, 2020;Franco et al, 2019;…”

“…Outside the academic scope, numerous studies have been carried out, according to the obtained data (35.9%). Anasi et al, 2018;Neary & Osborne, 2018;O'Keeffe, 2016;Purcell et al, 2019;Anasi et al, 2018;Neary & Osborne, 2018;O'Keeffe, 2016;Purcell et al, 2019;Anasi et al, 2018;Perović & Kosor, 2020;Leal-Filho et al, 2019;Kioupi & Voulvoulis, 2020;Kazakova et al, 2020;Franco et al, 2019;Franco & McCowan, 2020;Cabral et al, 2019;Crespo et al, 2017;Valter & Costa, 2020;Albareda-Tiana et al, 2018;Omisore et al, 2017;Aleixo et al, 2020;Brugmann et al, 2019;Maruna, 2019;Smaniotto et al, 2019;Silva et al, 2020;Hirsu et al, 2020;Esteban et al, 2020;De la Rosa et al, 2019;Blasco et al, 2020;Amadi et al, 2020;Paletta & Bonoli, 2019;Wagman et al, 2020;León, 2019). A total of 33% are theoretical articles (Cavallo et al, 2020;Cebrián, 2019;Gutiérrez & Villatoro, 2018;Anzola, 2020;Sánchez & Morales, 2020;Rodríguez et al, 2019;Sonetti et al, 2019;…”

“…Slocum et al, 2019;Rebelatto et al, 2019;Priyadarshini & Abhilash, 2020;Perović & Kosor, 2020;López et al, 2019; Heleta & Bagus, 2020; Fleacă et al, 2018; Valter & Costa, 2020;Macedo et al, 2019; Dlouhá et al, 2019;Maruna, 2019;Bohunovsky et al, 2019; Hirsu et al, 2020;Vologzhina et al, 2020; Chankseliani & Tristan, 2020; Esteban et al, 2020;Körfgen et al, 2019;Neumann, 2018;Paletta & Bonoli, 2019); of these 23 articles, only 8 have three categories associated (12.5%)(Zavala et al, 2020;Owens, 2017; O'Keeffe, 2016;Anasi et al, 2018;Franco & McCowan, 2020;Aleixo et al, 2020;De la Rosa et al, 2019;Wagman et al, 2020) and 1 has four categories (1.5%)(Franco et al, 2019), whereas another 31 articles…”

Occupation in the Anthropocene and Ethical Relationality

“…These definitions are ‘anthropocentric,’ which means that the ‘good’ of humankind is a central consideration in occupational rights and justice, whereas other living and non-living entities are absent. Understandings about the potential for occupations to impact or alter the land and relations has received little attention, though a shift is evident ( Aoyama, 2014 ; Lieb, 2022 ; Pollard et al, 2020 ; Simó Algado & Ann Townsend, 2015 ; Wagman, 2014 ; Wagman et al, 2020 ). It is acknowledged that “human occupations are causing an unprecedented crisis of environmental sustainability” ( Aoyama, 2014 , p. 459) and there are calls for occupational therapy education and practices to promote global sustainability goals.…”