Lessons learned from Covid-19
Why sustainability education needs to become political
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25321/prise.2021.1169Abstract
Background: Research from various disciplines indicates that the human endeavour has shifted the earth into a new geologic epoch: the Anthropocene, in which we are stressing several planetary boundaries. Many political papers see education as key to making the Anthropocene a sustainable epoch. This paper evaluates evidence on the effects of education for sustainability. It asks which role education must play in our endeavour to shape a sustainable future.
Purpose of this study is to evaluate existing approaches within education for sustainable development and position them relative to political and scientific demands.
Setting: The paper sets a three-step approach by (1) evaluating the global challenges of the 2020s based on evidence on the great acceleration of resource use, the approaching of the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch and the planetary boundaries. Central concepts of education to cope with these challenges like sustainability competences are analysed (2) and (3) programs aiming to implement these competences are evaluated.
Results: The paper shows that sustainability competences often are too abstract and that programs on education for sustainability often have a very limited impact on learners’ consciousness and behaviour. Based on data on sustainability policies and recent data on the Covid-19-lockdown the paper shows the limited effect of current strategies on education for sustainability.
Conclusions: Based on the empirical findings the paper concludes that when education for sustainability focuses on leaners’ competences to participate politically, it has a higher chance of success and a higher chance of having a positive effect on the sustainability challenges of the 21st century than a focus on learners consciousness or environmental behaviour.
Keywords: education for sustainable development, science education, Anthropocene, political education
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 The Author/s
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. The applicable licence is https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/, which means
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material under the following terms:
Attribution: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial: You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
ShareAlike: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
