More Personal Knowledge for More Sustainable Higher Education

The COVID-19 global pandemic presented an unprecedented challenge to the sustainability strategies and initiatives of many nations. In many countries, education strategies and funding were negatively impacted and, consequently, especially vulnerable groups were highly affected, amongst them Indigenous communities around the world. As Indigenous communities were already amongst the most vulnerable before 2020, a strategically and well-planned recovery from this pandemic would be vital to secure their well-being. This article offers reflections on the potential of infusing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the classroom, the school and the community as a whole, to deal with known and yet unprecedented sustainability challenges in presenting commonalities of 32 good practice reports from 21 countries collected in advance and during the global pandemic. Authors make the point of considering the pandemic and its widespread impact as yet another sustainability challenge and position ESD as a potential tool to achieve quality education and unleash the full potential of education for society when planning recovery efforts in hope for a better future of Indigenous communities in the long term. As the good practices were also included in a report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to the 48th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, focusing on the post-pandemic recovery efforts for Indigenous Peoples, further thoughts on both official reports and their alignment with the overall 2030 Agenda from an ESD perspective are included.

Section: Future Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections of Good Practice of Infusing ESD to Improve Education Outcomes for Indigenous Learners in Light of a Global Pandemic

Kohl

Hopkins

2022

“…Preparing teachers for ESD is critical for creating a sustainable future (UNESCO- UNEP, 1990), enabling them to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to understand and deal with the 21 st century challenges (UNESCO, 2017). Accor-dingly, as UNESCO (2005) emphasized, national teacher education policies of sustainability need to be revised to increase pre-service teachersí (PSTs) understanding of multifaceted and transdisciplinary sustainability concepts (Summers et al, 2003;Hepper, 2021;SalÓte et al, 2021), their attitudes (Tomas et al, 2017;Echegoyen-Sanz & Martín-Ezpeleta, 2021), competencies (Sleurs, 2008;Suleimenova & Ivanova, 2018;Kohl & Hopkins, 2020), beliefs (Yang et al, 2010) and other related dispositions. Among these constructs, several studies reported that beliefs had the potential to interfere with PSTsí teaching and learning (Keys & Bryan 2001), attitudes (Cotton et al, 2007), and behaviors (Corraliza & Berenguer, 2000).…”

Section: Role Of Teachersí Beliefs In Sustainability Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-Service Teachers’ Beliefs on Human Population Growth in the Context of Education for Sustainable Development: Development and Validation of an Instrument

Demirci¹,

Şahin

Teksöz

et al. 2021

The ongoing debates about the effects of human population growth (HPG) is one of the concepts in education for sustainable development (ESD). Beliefs toward HPG are an important construct for teacher education because beliefs potentially interfere with their instructional practices and students’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. Accordingly, this study focused on developing and validating an instrument to explore pre-service teachers’ beliefs toward the effects of HPG. The instrument was piloted, revised, and the main study was administered to 658 pre-service teachers. The instrument revealed five dimensions: requirements to support HPG; neo-Malthusian environmentalism; population and national economy; quality of human life; and population, resources and environment. Pre-service teachers’ beliefs revealed that they needed additional support to understand multiple and nested interactions among HPG, urbanization, energy demand and national economy within the context of sustainability. This instrument is a promising tool to provide insights when designing courses on ESD for pre-service teachers.

“…This theme needs to be updated in educational research, and pedagogy has a special interest in searching for its essence. Therefore, in the study presented in the article, we The False Self From the Pedagogical Perspective refer to the tangle of features characteristic of the Anthropocene, which we have identified and substantiated as important for the Anthropocene age and applicable in educational research for the study of wicked problems (SalÓte et al, 2021). In this tangle, there is an essential character of Anthropocene, which is formed by the interaction of the phenomena of egocentrism, anthropocentrism and egoism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The False Self From the Pedagogical Perspective

Salīte

Briede

Drelinga

et al. 2021

Self Cite

The article continues a broader theme of long-term action research aimed at reorienting education towards sustainability. The study uses a broader, more holistic research perspective, which takes into account the quality of the current relationship between nature and humanity, which is related to the formation of relations in the Anthropocene age and their consequences. The effects of the era put the pressure on the development of individuals’ self-processes, promoting unsustainability in education and other areas, and posing serious challenges to the use of the social communication and technology intensive environment. The case study is devoted to the examination of the phenomenon of the false self. For the study of the false self, we have used an acceptable approach to action research when it can be used as a research strategy and as a research method. Therefore, we have used the experience of the researchers and the special emphasis from the historical experience of the false self theory as a broader strategic structure for recognizing the phenomenon under study. We have used the structure of youth experience, where action research serves as a method to identify the life experience of young people. This way, the study attempts to combine the two application opportunities of the action research. These are two types of experience gained in different ways, with different structures and where it is possible to combine these structures by integrating or synthesizing them in a way that allows identifying the prospective development of these relationships, leading to a more natural path to more sustainable development. The case study is designed in such a way as to create a broader insight into the nature of the false self based on the research experience of the authors and their views on the choice of pedagogical solutions that can change the relationship between humanity and nature and improve the viability of both parties. A historically significant explanation of the phenomenological hermeneutic phenomenon of the false self is used, as well as an explanation of the respective method of immersing into the phenomenon proposed by Goethe. The issue of ontological succession is critical in the implementation of educational programs of the Anthropocene age, as the question of the ecological evolutionary basis of the human species is reduced. The current wicked problems of the Anthropocene age are based on the foundation that does not take into account the universal experience of humanity inherent in non-contextual and undifferentiated identities, the importance of which is sometimes underestimated by users of both critical and integral thinking theory. The discussion section and conclusions suggest using the life experience, restoring ontological succession and studying the non-conceptual perception in contemporary conditions. Proposals are made to seek approaches to transforming Anthropocene thinking and to reduce the problems of the age in education and social behavior in order to revive the issue of the choice and implementation of living approach models in the educational practice through the natural development of human abilities.