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Moving Schools Towards ESD in Catalonia, Spain: The Tensions of a Change
Abstract
The chapter aims at addressing the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) decade from a critical perspective so that changes and their underlying tensions can be identified in the Spanish autonomous region, Catalonia. First, the political and educational background of Environmental Education (EE) and ESD in Catalonia (Spain) is addressed, and its trajectory from the seventies until the present is briefly sketched. Second, the chapter describes the four big scale EE and ESD programmes in Catalonia, Spain, during the decade, such as Environmental Education Centres, Green Schools, School Agenda 21, and the Catalan Schools towards Sustainability Network (XESC). This includes basic quantitative data as well as qualitative interpretations of the experienced changes and derived tensions. Third, the chapter identifies three quality dimensions of ESD which are important for Catalan schools today such as the ESD school curriculum, the ESD thematic choices of schools, and the participatory culture necessary to develop ESD projects. Finally, the conclusions are built around the issue of how to approach the post-UN Decade on ESD period and confront the challenges related to research on ESD, teacher education on ESD, and the internationalisation of ESD school networks.
... This study was undertaken in the region of Catalonia in Spain. The Catalan Government held in 1998 the Green Schools programme, which is a voluntary programme for schools that focuses on four main areas of action: curriculum greening, environmental management of the states and operations, active participation of the school agents and the community, and action within the school environment (Espinet et al. 2014). In 2010, the Network of Schools for Sustainability of Catalonia (XESC in Catalan) was created, a network of networks formed by the Green Schools' network, municipal networks of School Agenda 21 and environmental programmes to promote education for sustainability within Catalan Schools. ...
... This review will also attempt to exhibit the mechanisms through which these concepts have been implemented as well as the challenges that are still in place by looking at different examples and countries. Notably, the examples of China, Chile, Oman, Spain, UK and USA will be provided using the following references (Du et al., 2013;Espinet et al., 2015;Fiselier et al., 2018;Hestness et al., 2015;Lee and Efird, 2014;Mula and Tilbury, 2011;Yuan and Zuo, 2013). On a deeper analytical stage, both the cases of Singapore and New Zealand will be studied from the point of view of SDGs and ESD integration (Eames et al., 2010;Tan and Tan, 2014). ...
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) or EfS, is a concept developed to systematically understand and change education systems promoting and galvanizing sustainability within the minds, hearts and actions of future generations. Qatar, being a small rentier country dependent on oil/gas revenues for its recent economic and social development, aims to achieve sustainable development as part of its national vision. Believing in the power of education to reverse-engineer the recurring environmental, social and economic challenges, this state has forged a partnership with the UNESCO office in Doha to adopt all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to promote for ESD across the K-12 levels and curricula. This is enshrined in the belief that such promotion would help evolve students’ higher thinking skills and mindfulness towards their surroundings. Yet, a holistic and strategic approach to integrating ESD and SDGs in the public K-12 institutions and curricula is still lacking and mostly underreported. Given this concern, the goal of this review paper is threefold. First, using a systematic quantitative literature review approach, it draws on previous studies to examine the notion of globalization in education and to investigate different curricula models from multiple countries such as Oman, UK, US, and China amongst others, focusing on two case studies: Singapore and New Zealand, from the basis of embedding sustainability values in their respective curricula. In a second step, the review provides an account on the contemporary Qatar Education System (QES) and its recent reforms as well as its attempts to integrate SDGs and ESD in K-12 curricula. Finally, after exhibiting socioeconomic similarities and the several bilateral education agreements that exist between the two aforementioned cases and the State of Qatar, a handful of potential suggestions to embed SDGs and ESD values in the existing curriculum of Qatar is provided.
... First of all, our decision was to use the vegetable garden as a learning context to promote science learning and community interaction from a school agroecology perspective. School vegetable gardens are becoming one of the most popular topics to work ESD approaches in Catalonia, probably because the possibility to act directly in a real context (Espinet, Junyent, Amat, & Castelltort, 2015). However, adopting a school agroecology framework, according to Miren Rekondo, Mariona Espinet, and Germán Llerena (2015), means emphasizing the food school system, suggests the transformation towards a more sustainable, and fair system, where the students and community stakeholders have an important role. ...
In this chapter, a case study in which the manner that community stakeholders are engaged in a school science learning project is analyzed. The educational project was framed within the school agroecological approach as the school food system is changed to a more sustainable and fair system using the vegetable garden management. From an event-oriented perspective, four events that allowed the transformation of the school and its community stakeholders are discussed in order to identify the kinds of difficulties faced and how they could be managed. These difficulties are interpreted through a sociocultural lens as a dialectical relationship between agency and structure.
... Clearly local students speak both. But there are now migrant students attending these schools who speak neither language as their home language (Espinet et al. 2015). In some other countries such as Australia, there is yet again a different variation. ...
This chapter provides a brief overview of issues regarding research in multilingual and culturally diverse STEM teaching and learning environments. We note how multilingualism has been addressed in some STEM education research, and we offer some diverse examples of such. But we also note some of the challenges that exist in multilingual classrooms around the world. Questions raised include how communication and learning take place when the languages spoken are not shared, how the fluency of the language of instruction is related to the mastery of the broader notion of scientific discourse, and how using a particular language is linked to different ways of learning. The complexity that comes with the recognition that multilingualism is the norm for most students suggests this must become a normal aspect of researching STEM teaching/learning and indeed become a fundamental that must be foregrounded for preparing teachers to teach STEM.
... Additionally, the geographical localization, as well as the high quality educational level, has made Catalonia an attractive place to students worldwide. According to Espinet et al. (2015), despite the civil war suffered in Spain during the middle of the twentieth century, the Catalan educational system was consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s. Through this consolidation process, some Catalan universities have emerged in order to extend the coverage of young and adult populations. ...
This article investigates the influence of informal and formal institutions on the university students' decision of becoming employer entrepreneurs (university students that create a new firm with employees) in the context of Catalonia. A sample of 1207 students from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya were surveyed for the period of 2012–2015, and Probit regressions over pooled data were used. The main findings suggest that formal factors (university's lack of incentives to create a new business, entrepreneurial knowledge, training and skills, and entrepreneurship education) are higher correlated with the student employer entrepreneurs than informal institutions (role models, entrepreneur's social image and fear of failure). Despite that the entrepreneur's social image does not seem to have an influence on the entrepreneurial decision of university students, the other variables analysed are statistically significant, correlated with entrepreneurship as a choice. Specifically, entrepreneurship education is the most relevant variable in explaining the decision of university students becoming employer entrepreneurs. The paper contributes with policy discussions in order to extend the current debate about the role of the universities in the entrepreneurial process and also the importance of entrepreneurial universities to the society.
... Aunque sus inicios son muy imprecisos, uno de los hitos que la impulsaron fue la creación del primer itinerario de naturaleza en el Bosque de Santiga en 1975 (Barcelona, Catalunya). Este itinerario, que fue creado des del Departamento de Botánica de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) desencadenó el diseño de otros itinerarios, nuevos equipamientos, cursos de formación, conferencias en el ámbito de la EA (TERRADAS, 2010;ESPINET et al., 2015). ...
Aprender sobre ciclo da agua e atuar responsavelmente requer propiciar um conhecimento complexo, levando em conta outros aspectos alem de reduzir seu consumo. Em nosso pais (Catalonia, Espanha), a tematica da agua se resume em saber interpretar uma representacao do ciclo natural sendo dada sem integrar a circulacao da agua na cidade e onde a questao ambiental se limita a elencar acoes para sua economia. Este enfoque faz com que algumas das dificuldades de compreensao e das visoes alternativas do aluno de primaria nao se superem e em muitos casos, continuem sem ser superadas ate finalizar a educacao obrigatoria. A investigacao realizada pode identificar as condicoes que contribuem para uma aprendizagem mais significativa sobre o contexto “agua” a partir de uma visao cientifica e ambiental. Os resultados permitiram identificar algumas estrategias para que as atividades programadas sejam as mais significativas possiveis para a aprendizagem.
It is presented a qualitative research that aims to provide answers to the shared diagnosis of the lack of training of educative teams concerning Curriculum Greening. We present a training model that has been implemented in a training activity addressed to teachers from primary and secondary education, and also to consultants of Environmental Education who belong to the Xarxa d'Escoles per a la Sostenibilitat de Catalunya (Network of Schools for the Sustainability of Catalonia). The purpose of the model is to shorten the distance between the ideological approach of Environmental Education and its practical concretion in the classroom, which often becomes an obstacle to Curriculum Greening. To this end, the training proposal is based on the concept of high level idea and its connection with the practice, that has been specified in the identification of four spheres: conceptual, creative, didactic and research. The work presented concludes that the proposed model is a coherent, solid and rigorous way of approaching Curriculum Greening. Furthermore, the study has enabled to identify, between the teachers who participated in the training activity, four profiles depending on the grade of transference of the model to their professional context: propellant, catalyst, cognitive reinforcement and emotional reinforcement. This categorization offers elements that enable to explore which components, in both teaching and consultant level, should be considered and which should be surpassed to achieve a high level of transference of the training proposal in order to improve the level of Curriculum Greening.
Se presenta una investigación de carácter cualitativo que pretende dar respuestas al diagnóstico compartido sobre el déficit en la formación de los equipos educativos en relación a la ambientalización curricular. Presentamos un modelo de formación que se ha implementado en una actividad formativadirigida a docentes de educación primaria y secundaria y a asesores en educación ambiental pertenecientes a la Xarxa d' Escoles per a la Sostenibilitat de Catalunya. El modelo tiene como finalidad salvar la distancia entre el planteamiento ideológico de la educación ambiental y su concreción práctica en las aulas que a menudo constituye un obstáculo para la ambientalización curricular. Para ello la propuesta formativa se fundamenta en el concepto de idea de alto nivel y su conexión con la práctica que se ha concretado en la determinación de cuatro esferas:conceptual, creativa, didáctica y de investigación. El trabajo presentado concluye que el modelo propuesto es una forma coherente, sólida y rigurosade abordar la ambientalización curricular. El estudio además ha permitido identificar, entre el profesorado participante en la actividad formativa, cuatro perfiles en función del grado de transferibilidad del modelo a su contexto profesional: propulsor, catalizador, refuerzo cognitivo y refuerzo emocional. Esta categorización ofrece elementos que permiten explorar sobre que componentes, tanto a nivel de docente como de asesoría, debemos tener en consideración y cuáles debemos superar para alcanzar un alto nivel de transferencia de la propuesta formativa en pro de mejorar el nivel de ambientalización curricular.
La investigación que se presenta en este artículo se basa en un estudio exploratorio sobre la visión de un grupo de futuros maestros de educación primaria en relación a la Educación para la Sostenibilidad desde un punto de vista competencial. En primer lugar se redefine un marco conceptual de competencias profesionales de los maestros en Educación para la Sostenibilidad, basado en la especificación del concepto de competencia, el rol como formadores, las competencias generales y el desarrollo profesional en Educación para la Sostenibilidad. Este marco competencial a su vez orienta la exploración de la visión sobre competencias profesionales de los futuros maestros, que constituye el segundo objetivo de esta investigación. El instrumento utilizado es un cuestionario al que han respondido un grupo de 32 alumnos de 3.º de Magisterio de la diplomatura de Educación Primaria, el análisis del cual ha sido básicamente cualitativo. Algunos de los resultados indican que los futuros/as docentes, participantes en el estudio, enfatizan la clarificación de valores, la capacidad de tomar decisiones, participar y actuar para el cambio, pero por el contrario no consideran visionar escenarios de futuro, el pensamiento crítico, el diálogo entre disciplinas y la gestión de las emociones y preocupaciones, competencias profesionales esenciales en la Educación para la Sostenibilidad. Se considera que los resultados obtenidos pueden orientar el diseño de estrategias didácticas y herramientas de evaluación para la mejora de la formación inicial del profesorado en el ámbito de las competencias profesionales en Educación para la Sostenibilidad.
Guiding documents under the ‘PEC’ acronym are commonly used in environmental education centres (EECs) in Spain. They are written documents that are seen as necessary tools to safeguard quality. In this study, we analyse the guiding documents of twenty-three EECs in the province of Girona (Catalonia, Spain) in order to understand their contents and detect strengths and weaknesses. The instrument used for document analysis is a rubric created for this purpose from the literature review. It includes four main sections: identity features, context analysis, formulation of goals and a plan of action. Each of these sections has associated items that have been used to analyse the guiding documents mentioned. The results show a great lack of information regarding evaluational aspects. They also show difficulties in defining the concepts of environmental education or education for sustainability and relating sustainability to the milieu of EECs.
Uno de los retos de la educación es dotar a la ciudadanía de los recursos que le permitan construir las oportunidades que se vislumbran en el actual contexto de crisis. El paradigma de la complejidad se constituye como una propuesta sólida paraabordar dicho reto desde la educación ambiental, apostando por la ambientalización curricular. El paradigma de la complejidad emerge del diálogo entre una forma de pensar, un marco de valores y un modelo de acción que incorporan los principios de la ciencia contemporánea (estructuras, relaciones, organización, procesos…) Incorporar los principios de la complejidad a la educación ambiental comporta preguntarse cómo dichos principios hacen reconsiderar aspectos como el modelo de pensamiento, la relación entre disciplinas de conocimiento, la planificación de la acción, la relevancia de las emociones y la forma de abordar la investigación didáctica.
En: Investigación en la escuela Sevilla 2002, n. 46 ; p. 49-54 'Capacitar para la acción' en educación ambiental necesita de la existencia de grupos sociales que actúen y que desarrollen ambientes emocionalmente estimulantes. El desarrollo de la capacidad de actuar de los estudiantes aparece de su inmersión en ambientes que ponen en práctica lo que predican. Si la escuela quiere intervenir en una capacitación para la acción que promueva cambios, ha de transforme en un grupo que actúe generando emociones positivas en sus componentes, p. 54
1. Research in Medicine and in the Biological Sciences has gradually improved well-being and indeed the life expectancy of mankind. This is why nobody today disputes the importance of research in the field of the biomedical sciences, since progress in the latter depends largely on the results obtained through research. For this reason, biomedical research -leaving aside for the moment other considerations which I shall address further on- is viewed as first and foremost an asset of mankind in that it enables us to understand better the mechanisms of disease and illness, their causes and the means to prevent, combat or alleviate them. Research also helps fulfill one of the most burning desires of human nature: the quest for new knowledge. All this has received recognition in law. International and, more explicitly, national legal instruments recognise and protect freedom of scientific enquiry as a right, in many cases a fundamental one, and the authorities pledge themselves to the promotion of research.
This paper aims to present the process of a collaborative project on developing an ESD curriculum framework that involved different educational agents. This project was founded in the following main ideas: (i) the need on developing an ESD framework for schools; (ii) the acknowledge of the teachers’ empowerment to mainstreaming of education for sustainability; (iii) quality on ESD is a contextualized process.
Amb aquest article es fa un balanç de les aportacions fetes per recerques universitàries a l’Ajuntament de Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona) al voltant del parc rural de la Torre Negra. Les recerques són de naturalesa educativa i territorial, posant en valor per primer cop l’agricultura per una ciutat que ha deixat de ser pagesa per esdevenir un símbol de qualitat de vida urbana. Una primera recerca (Martín-Aragón i Espinet, 2007), realitzada com a treball de final de carrera de Ciències Ambientals per la UAB fa una proposta de pla de gestió per al parc rural de la Torre Negra, recentment protegit per l’administració. Aquesta recerca contempla especialment els valors socials i educatius, a banda dels ecològics, per fer les propostes de dinamització de l’espai. Una segona recerca (Fisher, 2008), realitzada com a treball de final de màster d’Agricultura Ecològica per la UB recull les línies de la primera i fa una proposta d’equipament dinamitzador de l’agroecolgia a l'espai, un hort educatiu i productiu. Aquest article reflexiona sobre les conseqüències de la recerca en la gestió municipal.
The history of environmental education reveals a close connection between changing concerns about the environment and its associated problems and the way in which environmental education is defined and promoted. In the 1990s, mounting concern over environment and development problems has meant greater support for an educational approach, which not only considers immediate environmental improvement as an actual goal, but also addresses educating for ‘sustainability’ in the long term. Although some education literature has embraced this new focus of environmental education for sustainability (EEFS), it has failed to outline the essence of this approach and has neglected questions about how it differs from the environmental education of the 1980s. No document exists to date which translates the goals of EEFS into guiding principles for its development in schools. Essentially, EEFS needs further definition. This paper is an attempt to engage the debate about what constitutes this new focus of environmental education and how it may differ from conventional approaches to environmental education.
En: Revista de educación (Madrid) Madrid 2003, n. 331, mayo-agosto ; p. 241-264 El objetivo principal de este trabajo es conseguir una aproximación a la investigación e innovación desarrolladas en el ámbito de la educación ambiental en España hasta el horizonte del año 2000. Como metodología se propone la revisión y análisis de distintos materiales, que básicamente se estructuran en cuatro grandes apartados : congresos y otros foros celebrados en España; libros o monografías publicadas; tesis doctorales leídas; y lo recogido en publicaciones periódicas, todo ello en relación con la educación ambiental. Entre las principales conclusiones reseñadas, se presenta un resumen de la evolución de la educación ambiental en España, que distingue y caracteriza tres etapas o períodos principales, haciéndolos coincidir temporalmente con las tres últimas décadas : la etapa que podría denominarse de 'impulso inicial', asociada a la década de los setenta; la etapa de 'institucionalización', asociada a la década de los ochenta y la etapa de 'consolidación y planteamiento crítico', asociada a la década de los noventa, Bibliografía al final
Collaboration between school and community through agroecology: A vegetable school garden as a boundary object
- A Amat
- M Espinet
Xarxa de Recerca en Educació per a la Sostenibilitat (Catalan research network on education for sustainability)
- Edusost
The making of a new STEM discipline: A sociocultural view of school agroecology. Ponencia en cultural studies of science education forum
- M Espinet
Trobant el propi camí cap a l’escola sostenible… (Canviant de model d’agenda 21 escolar) IV Jornada sobre L’Estat de la Recerca en Educació per a la Sostenibilitat
- M Espinet
- G Llerena
- P Grau
- A Amat
School Agroecology as a motor for community and land transformations: A case study on the collaboration among community actors to promote Education for Sustainability (ES) school networks
- M Espinet
- G Llerena
EURONET 50/50 project
- Euronet
La cultura de la participación en los centros de secundaria
- A M Forestello
Escuelas Sostenibles en Red (Schools towards networked sustainability)
- Esenred
Situació i reptes de l’educació ambiental. Conferència en el lliurament del I Premi Albert Pérez-Bastardas
- T Franquesa
Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on transnational mobility within the community for education and training purposes: European quality charter for mobility
- European Parliament
- Council
ECEA: Estratègia Catalana d'Educació Ambiental: una eina per a la comunicació i la participació. Document Marc
- Generalitat De Catalunya
Estrategias interactivas para la evaluación de actividades de educación ambiental para la sostenibilidad en el ámbito municipal
- P Grau
- M Espinet
Education for sustainable development: The Barcelona School Agenda 21 Program
- T Franquesa
- T Pujol
- G Muccio
Best practice—Educating for sustainability: The Barcelona School Agenda 21 Programme: Barcelona
- Un Habitat
La Red de Escuelas para la Sostenibilitat de Cataluña (XESC)Trabajar en red, una herramienta clave en los programas de educación ambiental dirigidos a centros educativos
- P Pérez
Engaging people in sustainability
- D Tilbury
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Programa Escoles Verdes
- E Sanglas
Guia para hacer la agenda 21 escolar Ministerio de Medio Ambiente. Organismo Autónomo Parques Nacionales
- H Weissmann
- A Llabrés
L’Educació ambiental en xarxa Barcelona: Institut de Ciències de l’Educació de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona i Societat Catalana d’Educació Ambiental
- A Torras
Learning for the future Competences in education for sustainable development
- Unece Ece
- Cep
- Ac
En el camí de l’escola sostenible. Una nova guia per fer l’Agenda 21 Escolar. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona
- H Weissmann
- T Franquesa
La Agenda 21 Escolar de Barcelona: una experiencia innovadora
- H Weissmann
- C L Rodríguez
- A Jurado
- M Pomeroy
Recommendation of the European Parliament on transnational mobility within the community for education and training purposes: European quality charter for mobility
- European Parliament
- Council
En el camí de l’escola sostenible Una nova guia per fer l’Agenda 21 Escolar
- H Weissmann
- T Franquesa
Engaging schools into reflection on the quality of ESD Building an ESD curriculum framework on compulsory educations: A collaborative project Creating learning environments for the future. Research and practice on sharing knowledge on ESD Kessel-Lo: Environment and School Initiatives (ENSI)
- M Junyent
Estudio de caso para la evaluación de una Agenda 21 Escolar: el caso de Sant Cugat del Vallès
- G Llerena
- M Espinet
Programa Escoles Verdes. Document Marc
- Generalitat De Catalunya
The educational system in Catalonia: Basic aspects. Education Department
- Generalitat De Catalunya
Guia per fer l’Agenda 21 Escolar
- H Weissmann
- A Llabrés
The collaboration between local administration and university to promote education for sustainability school networks on agroecology
- G Llerena
- M Espinet