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Teacher educators prepare prospective teachers to deliver Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in schools. Lecturers’ personal perceptions of ESD guide them in this work. While there has been some research into lecturers’ perceptions of ESD in general, teacher educators as a group have been given scarcely any consideration. As groundwork for...
Citations
... However, the root cause of all the curretn wicked problems is the selfish anthropocentric perspective that has become dominant at the beginning of the Anthropocene era (Kopnina & Bedford, 2024). There are many related studies exploring this issue (Adefila et al., 2021;Clark & Szerszynski, 2020;Goller & Rieckmann, 2022;Quinn et al., 2016;Saiful & Setyorini, 2022;Salīte, Fjodorova et al., 2021;Salīte, Briede et al., 2021;Salīte et al., 2023). ...
The article seeks to answer the question “Can ecopedagogy mitigate the impact of unsustainable education?” The aim of the article is a phenomenological and hermeneutical reflection on some issues relevant to ecopedagogy at the beginning of the Anthropocene era, when education policy, its governance, the transformation of the holistic approach into a more holistic one and the biological origins and deep cosmological roots of the human species have started to diminish. These and other wicked problems have been used in a reflexive participatory action research setting, which was initiated in 2000 for the development of a teacher program and a reflexive ecopedagogy course.
The study adopts a holistic evolutionary-ecological perspective. Through this perspective, the indivisibility of the evolutionary-ecological phenomenon is highlighted, which opens, highlights and “fuses” the natural cosmic relation of human beings to the environment and society in the pursuit of humanity’s goals . The evolutionary-ecological framework of the phenomenon is considered in the context of the emergence and understanding of a transdisciplinary approach. Two types of transdisciplinary platforms developed within the evolutionary-ecological phenomenon are examined. Through the origins of these platforms, educators are offered the opportunity to discover the relation between the transdisciplinary approach and the evolutionary-ecological phenomenon in pedagogy and the emergence of ideas or emergent recursion in complex evolutionary-ecological processes at different levels, which is enacted through the teacher as living learning aimed at a noble humanity.
... Similar challenges arose at the Private Junior High School, where some parents demonstrated a lack of comprehension regarding the significance of the Adiwiyata program and its impact on their children's educational path. Consequently, the principals of both schools needed to overcome this resistance by involving all relevant stakeholders in the planning process and providing them with clear information about the benefits and objectives of the green program (Gill et al., 2021;Goller & Rieckmann, 2022). Addressing this challenge requires training and discussion to clarify the long-term benefits of the program and foster collective support (Harris & Chapman, 2022). ...
The primary aim of this study is to explore how transformational leadership influences school management and to identify effective strategies that support sustainable environmental development. This qualitative research employs case studies involving school principals, five teachers, three students, and three parents from junior high schools in Malang City that have implemented green school (Adiwiyata) programs. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews, direct observations, and document analysis. Triangulation was used to analyze the data, ensuring the accuracy and credibility of the findings. The results indicate that transformational leadership is crucial in implementing green school policies by fostering stakeholder motivation and engagement in sustainability practices. Key challenges include resistance to change and limited resources. Effective strategies involve enhancing leadership training, fostering participatory policy development, and integrating environmentally friendly technologies. This study offers valuable insights for improving managerial practices in green schools and advancing environmental sustainability in the education sector.
... It also highlights the responsibility of the school in developing proposals aligned with the SDGs within its educational environment. It is, thus, incumbent upon educators to develop curricula that foster critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration among students, equipping them with the tools to navigate the challenges of the 21st century effectively (Bikfalvi et al., 2024;Briede et al., 2024;Goller & Rieckmann, 2022). Furthermore, it offers students a comprehensive understanding of the interconnectivity between social, economic, and environmental issues (Calatayud & Guardeño, 2022;Mayr & Volmer, 2024). ...
... The data presented also highlight the link between the SDGs and the content and competencies within the curriculum (Garcia & Moreno, 2021), which facilitates students' acquisition of knowledge, attitudes, values, and practices aimed at improving coexistence, caring for and protecting the environment, promoting social justice, and valuing diversity. As referenced in the relevant literature (de Marcos & Sanahuja, 2021;Goller & Rieckmann, 2022;Mayr & Volmer, 2024), the inclusion of the SDGs in education promotes civic behaviours among young people. Curriculum inclusion, as noted by Goller & Rieckmann (2022) is one of the most effective measures for working with the SDGs.This is reflected in the data presented in this study, firstly, through the implementation of self-care practices, such as maintaining a healthy diet (healthy breakfast) and engaging in physical exercise (Health Education Program). ...
... As referenced in the relevant literature (de Marcos & Sanahuja, 2021;Goller & Rieckmann, 2022;Mayr & Volmer, 2024), the inclusion of the SDGs in education promotes civic behaviours among young people. Curriculum inclusion, as noted by Goller & Rieckmann (2022) is one of the most effective measures for working with the SDGs.This is reflected in the data presented in this study, firstly, through the implementation of self-care practices, such as maintaining a healthy diet (healthy breakfast) and engaging in physical exercise (Health Education Program). Secondly, though not in any particular order, this is evidenced by addressing common themes related to social and community well-being ("Environment Project", "Recycling Project", "Regional Plan for the Improvement of School Coexistence", among others). ...
The integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in educational centers has become an imperative need to prepare new generations with the necessary competencies to respond to new global challenges. Schools, as educators, have a responsibility to foster education that promotes sustainable development, ensuring that new generations adopt practices and values that contribute to building a more equitable and sustainable future.
The goal of this article is to provide an overview of the actions and experiences related to the SDGs that are being carried out at schools in the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia (Spain). A purposive sampling was carried out, and the sample consisted of 40 educational centers. The centers were selected based, firstly, on their consideration as key agents in the development of the SDGs and, secondly, on their territorial representativeness. A descriptive qualitative research approach was adopted, using a semi-structured in-depth interview, with teachers and members of the management teams, as an instrument to collect 163 information. A content analysis based on grounded theory was conducted, which made it possible to identify the agents promoting actions and programs linked to the SDGs, as well as to categorize by theme the different actions being developed by the centers to contribute to the development of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda.
... This means teachers play a critical role in meeting these challenges as they educate and guide students about necessary actions (Ferguson, Roofe, & Cook, 2021). However, introducing such complex issues to young learners is a significant challenge in itself (Goller, & Rieckmann, 2022;Glavič, 2020). For this latter challenge, an increasing number of children's picturebooks have emerged, focusing on themes of sustainable development. ...
This study explores the efficacy of children's picture books in communicating complex environmental issues to young audiences, focusing on We Are Water Protectors and Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior. These books utilize the approach of Multimodal Discourse Analysis, to explore how pictures engage and educate about water protection. Through a detailed examination of interactions within these books and with readers, this article highlights how visual narratives can effectively evoke emotional responses and foster environmental awareness among young readers. The findings suggest that such visual narratives not only enhance understanding of sustainability challenges but also serve as powerful tools for social change, inspiring activism, and cultural engagement.
... Prior to any change, awareness needs to be raised in the first place. The best way to promote the awareness of something that has become unsustainably and destructively "normal" is to teach people (Goller & Rieckmann, 2022). ...
Education for sustainable nutrition will only succeed if society is given direct access and experience to the obvious benefits of a sustainable lifestyle. An earlier personal and positive association to a sustainable lifestyle makes a dietary shift most likely. Here, the training future teachers plays a central role as a multiplicator.
Project-based learning (PBL) is a well-known approach with the purpose of crosslinking theoretical knowledge with real-life practice. Despite many existing PBL approaches, there is a gap of conveniently applicable and easily transferable approaches for ensuring their sustainable integration into teacher education. This study aims to fill this gap by exemplarily leading students to experience edible plant diversity in urban environments via action-oriented learning and out-of-school learning places.
The present study outlines the methodological and didactic process and the practical implementation of an innovative sustainable approach of PBL for education for sustainable nutrition in the curriculum of teacher education. The results are discussed on the basis of student feedback and the evaluation of the recent course conducted in 2022 at the Technical University of Berlin. Measured by the outcome of the course, the new concept applied here has a personal impact by that having the potential to facilitate a more sustainable approach of nutrition in our society.
... Firstly, a lack of knowledge and training in sustainability education and its integration into language teaching can hinder teachers' ability to effectively incorporate sustainability topics. Without the necessary understanding and skills, language teachers may struggle to navigate this intersection (Goller & Rieckmann, 2022). Time constraints also pose a significant challenge. ...
... broad dissemination in society. In this context, Teacher Education for Sustainable Development is explicitly referred to as a key success factor in achieving the goals of Agenda 2030 and ESD (72,73 long-term solutions that are equitable, efficacious, and sustainable" (76). The "two-eyed-seeing" heuristic (77) deals with the level of complexity (as inherent in OH and ESD topics) and embraces involved values as well as different disciplines as an educational rationale for an experienced world. ...
Introduction
The fact that the daily lives of billions of people were affected by the medical, social, and political aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic shows the need to anchor the understanding of One Health in society. Hence, promoting awareness and deepening the understanding of the interrelation between human health, animal health, and ecosystems must be accomplished through quality education, as advocated by UN Sustainable Development Goal 4. The often-questioned and discussed measures taken by governments to control the global pandemic between 2020 and 2023 can be seen as an opportunity to meet the educational needs of civil society solutions in multi-stakeholder settings between public, universities, and schools.
Methods
This paper focuses on the integration of One Health principles in educational frameworks, particularly within the context of the higher education teaching framework “Teaching Clinic.” This master-level course in the domain of pre-service teacher education serves as a potent vehicle for facilitating One Health Education, bridging the gap between research, higher education, and schools. Through the presentation of two case studies, this article demonstrates how the Teaching Clinic approach fosters interdisciplinary perspectives and provides a dynamic learning environment for pre-service teachers, as well as for pupils involved in the educational process.
Results
In both cases, the integration of educational One Health school teaching-learning settings effectively enhanced pupils’ understanding of complex topics and engaged them in active learning experiences. Pre-service teachers played a crucial role in developing, implementing, and evaluating these interventions. In Case I, pupils demonstrated proficiency in analyzing data and evaluating mathematical models, while in Case II, the chosen instructional approach facilitated One Health knowledge acquisition and enjoyment among pupils. These results underscore the potential of the One Health Teaching Clinic as a valuable educational framework for enhancing teaching and learning outcomes for pre-service teachers and fostering pupil engagement in socio-scientific One Health-related topics.
Discussion
The discussion delves into the significance of breaking down disciplinary silos and the crucial role of teacher education in promoting a holistic approach to education, emphasizing the intersectionality of One Health Education and Education for Sustainable Development. This article underpins the significance of collaborative efforts across multiple (scientific) disciplines and across secondary and tertiary education levels to reach a nexus. Moreover, it emphasizes the alignment of this approach with the 2030 Agenda, Education for Sustainable Development, and Sustainable Development Goals, highlighting the potential for collective action toward a more sustainable future.
... The third issue that is analyzed in this section is related to the lack of the requirement for a pedagogical education for academic staff. It is widely argued (see, e.g., Sunthonkanokpong and Murphy, 2019;Koskela & Karkkainen, 2021;Goller & Rieckmann, 2022;Zandvliet & Paul, 2023) that teachers are crucial to achieving sustainable development goal No 4 "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" (United Nations, 2015) of inclusive, equitable, high-quality education. This means that a particular attention needs to be devoted to the teachers' education. ...
For the last few decades, there has been an ongoing academic debate about the integration of sustainability into the curricula of higher education institutions to address various global challenges. Legal education is no exception. Taking into consideration that the new generation of legal professionals will be responsible for the development of regulations as well as for advocating for the individuals’ interests related to global issues, they need to be equipped with knowledge and skills to tackle these complex problems effectively. In this context, teachers1 play a crucial role, since they can instill in their students a sense of responsibility towards the future generations. The aim of this paper is to analyze how the concept of sustainability can be integrated into the curriculum of legal education in general and in Latvia in particular. To achieve the aim, the following research methods are used: legal analysis to examine the meaning and the place of the concept of sustainability in the context of legal education in Latvia and a scientific literature review to investigate the concept of sustainability in the context of integrating it into the curriculum of legal education. The main conclusions of the article: the future strategy for law schools and law faculties in Latvia should involve the incorporation of sustainability into the learning outcomes of law programs and specific courses, teaching strategies, and research opportunities for students; also, by broadening interdisciplinarity of the programs and involving students in collaboration with various stakeholders to promote sustainable development.
... Consistent with SDG 4, the sustainability of higher education (henceforth -HE) development rests on qualified academic staff capable of promoting professional and sustainability knowledge (UN SDG 4,n.d.) via sustainability-induced learning experience (Zandvliet & Paul, 2023). This implies that academic staff "are key multipliers in the promotion of Sustainable Development" (Goller & Rieckmann, 2022) and, accordingly, should be enthusiastic to continuously update their professional competences and provide high-quality training. Therefore, it is important that education be oriented towards sustainability (Jurgena et al., 2021). ...
... Irrespective of interpretations of sustainable development, not only governing bodies but also academia acknowledge its importance (Goller & Rieckmann, 2022); therefore, education for sustainable development has been promoted across the globe (Veisson & Kabaday, 2018) in the format of SDG 4 (quality of education) and SDG 8 (economic growth and decent workplace). Among the key drivers of education are teachers (Nithyanandam, 2020). ...
The quality of higher education (HE) is dependent on many factors, including the quality of teaching. As any profession, teaching is based on internal values and motives of individuals. The goal of the research is to identify the most dominant career drivers of academic staff based on their career motives and values in order to provide HE managers with information relevant to academic staff engagement policies to enable shaping of sustainable education policies at higher education institutions (HEIs). The research goal is grounded in the purpose of human resource management that is designed to stimulate certain employee behavior so that employee actions and intentions could be aligned with corporate strategic goals. If there is a wide gap between the needs and interests of employees and their employer, employee productivity gradually declines, thus decreasing the competitiveness of an organization. The following research question has been formulated: Is there a discrepancy in values between academic staff and managers of HE, who create the work environment for the academic staff? To attain the goal of the research, university lecturers from Ukraine completed Schein’s questionnaire online in 2021, while in 2023 middle- and senior managers of universities from Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania were asked to prioritize career drivers for academic staff. Both groups ranked technical / professional competence and service / dedication to a cause as primary priorities. However, the value of security / stability was prioritized only by academic staff, while autonomy / independence and entrepreneurial creativity were selected by HE managers. The research outcomes indicate converging and diverging points in opinions on the career drivers of academic staff. Having this knowledge, HE managers are in a better position to modify the academic workplace to stimulate academic productivity, and enhance business models and quality assurance policies at their institutions on the path towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 “Quality Education”. The diversity of opinions both within and between the groups of academic staff and HE managers supports the need to design human resource management policies consistent with the theory of personalized human resource management for higher productivity. The findings of the study contribute to the global discussion of career drivers of teachers by providing evidence in support of the increasing importance of professional (technical) competences and creative abilities for quality education.
... In the �ield of teacher education, there is a consensus that contents of education for sustainable development should be integrated into its curriculum (Goller & Rieckmann, 2022;Martinsone et al., 2023;Pegalajar-Palomino et al., 2021;Salıte et al., 2020). One of the recent trends is that many teacher education programs emphasize the understanding of climate change mitigation and adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in pursuing sustainable future (Brennan, 2019;Mochizuki & Bryan, 2015;Murayama & Yagi, 2016). ...
This paper reports the study which explored the learning and teaching of the topics of climate change, sustainability and disaster risk reduction in secondary-level teacher education programs in England and Japan. Through interviewing teacher educators, the study particularly probed how teacher education programs used local knowledge and collaboration in discussing the above topics. Geography tends to be the main subject area for these global agendas, but its crammed curriculum is “an ongoing challenge” for teacher education. Some researchers demonstrate that university-based initial teacher education has “ignored” training teachers on how to implement environmental and sustainability education at schools. Besides, the inquiries into how initial teacher education equips geography teachers for the learning and teaching of disaster risk reduction are still scarce. This paper aims to fill this gap by bringing together the fields of geography education, climate change and sustainability education, disaster risk reduction education and initial teacher education.