Differences in Teachers’ Professional Action Competence in Education for Sustainable Development: The Importance of Teacher Co-Learning

This study builds on a research-practitioner partnership embedded within an education for sustainable development (ESD) project and aims to explore the major potential challenges (i.e., disciplinary boundaries set by subject specialization, especially in secondary education) and success factors (i.e., teacher co-learning experiences in ESD) associated with differences in teachers’ professional action competence (PACesd) in a sample of 557 in-service teachers in primary and secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium. The study employed a recently validated PACesd measurement instrument and involved quantitative data analysis in a structural equation modelling framework. The results show that primary education teachers tend to report higher PACesd levels compared to their peers in secondary education. Moreover, regardless of educational level, gender and teaching experience, all teachers participating in a working group or a learning community in ESD are more likely to show higher levels of PACesd. Implications of the findings, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Digitalization and higher education for sustainable development in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic: A content analysis approach

Higher education for sustainable development (HESD) in the Covid-19 pandemic faces different challenges. Empirically few studies to date have introduced much on the digitalization of higher education for sustainable development. This study aims to explore and explain the digitalization of HESD from different attitudes and to build linkages of the digitalization in HESD. Furthermore, the study makes content analysis where 1,200 tweets on digitalization in higher education for sustainable development are collected from Twitter, and 19 documents have further categorized information data via NVivo. In addition, 22 students and 9 instructors were invited for a semi-structured interview to further supplement this study and confirm its findings. This study finds that attitudes towards digitalization in the study area can be divided into three correlated attitude layers. Teaching attitudes and educational attitudes are the first level, and the second level is the digital platform attitude, technology use attitude, and resource attitude. Furthermore, network attitude, service attitude, and development attitude are the third level. Thus, through the analysis, this study suggests higher education institutions should make improvements in digitalized teaching, education quality via innovation, technological development, resources use, and development via creating a better digital platform or environment is essential for genuinely promoting the HESD.

Pre-Service Geography Teachers’ Professional Competencies in Education for Sustainable Development

The professional competencies pre-service geography teachers acquire in university influence their contribution to education for sustainable development (ESD) in their future school careers. We assessed pre-service geography teachers’ (n = 100) competencies and attitudes towards the official, German ESD orientation framework to determine the specific need for higher education action. The results are a high competence assessment and even higher importance assigned to the ESD-related professional competencies. In the context of ESD, pre-service teachers are most confident in their content knowledge and social and personal competencies and least confident in their pedagogical knowledge. The cross-sectional analysis shows the perceived competence level rising with the semester number and a strong positive influence of the school practice module.

A Correlation Analysis of Education for Sustainable Development in Pre and Post Covid Scenarios

Education for sustainable development (ESD) has become a focus of international education attention, for its multidisciplinary character and for the interest in caring for the environment due to their degradation and environmental impact. This study compared two tests, one was conducted before confinement on 325 participants with 3545 responses, and one in confinement on 350 participants with 3832 responses. Surveys were conducted using Google Forms, based on 11 questions with its items verified by ANOVA and Bonferroni. The COVID-19 lockdown significantly influenced the results of both tests. The results indicated increased awareness of the environment during confinement. At the educational level it was intended to take an initial test and a year later perform a second test to compare them. The first test was carried out online at school, and the second one was held a year later in confinement due to COVID-19. This unexpected circumstance became an opportunity to value and compare them in different circumstances. Surveys were conducted using Google Forms. The results indicated a more significant concern for sustainability. The conclusion has been that students behave more sensitively to sustainable development in confinement circumstances.

Ethics Teaching in Education for Sustainable Development

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is nowadays internationally considered an important aspect of the overall education of children and young people in the world. It is included among the goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Besides its content – sustainable development – ESD is also characterized by its emphasis on a democratic and participatory educational procedure. In this paper, we show how both these aspects of ESD – its content and procedure – reveal the importance of bringing ethical considerations into ESD, as well as provide challenges for ethics teaching in ESD. Keywords: education for sustainable development (ESD), sustainable development, ethics education, teaching ethics, participatory education, controversial issues

Research Study on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development in Mongolia

There is scientific consensus that Mongolia is already facing the negative consequences of climate change. Raising public awareness and increasing education initiatives is one of the most important ways to adapt and mitigate climate change. The paper consists of two main sections. The first section reviewed the policies and provisions in support developing climate change education for sustainable development and analyzed the level of teachers' knowledge of climate change education for sustainable development and determined the needs for teacher training. The second part assessed the coverage level of climate change education for sustainability in national educational standards, curricula and textbooks in Mongolia. To evaluate the coverage level, the team defined the concepts and coverage of Climate change education (CCE), Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and Education for sustainable development (ESD) and developed the indicators to analyze CCE/DRR/ESD content coverage on the curricula and textbooks.

National Consciousness and Management of Secondary Education for Sustainable Development in Kwara State, Nigeria

National consciousness within educational institutions could enhance effective management of education for sustainable development. This study examines the existing relationship between cultural integration, sports activities, gender equality and management of secondary education for sustainable development in Nigeria. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 175 principals from a population of 310 principals and 364 teachers from a population of 6,894 teachers in public senior secondary schools in Kwara State, Nigeria with the use of Research Advisor (2006) table to determine sample size of a known population making a total of 539 participants. Data were collected using the National Consciousness and Management of Education for Sustainable Development Questionnaire (NCMESDQ), and analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson Correlation. The results revealed that there were positive and significant relationships between cultural integration, sports activities, gender equality and management of secondary education for sustainable development in Nigeria. The findings imply that education managers should improve cultural integration by finding more common grounds in the cultural practices of the people in respect to dressing, festivals and the likes, furthermore, education managers should pay more emphasis on sport activities as a means of bringing students of various schools together as well as improve on gender equality in order to maintain effective management of secondary education for sustainable development in Nigeria. Keywords: National consciousness, cultural integration, gender equality, sports activities, sustainable development