Barriers and Facilitators of Educational Sustainability: Metaphorical Perceptions and Views of Teachers

Abstract

UNESCO underlines that it should be known that educational sustainability is an integral part of education that requires participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower learners to change their behaviours and act for sustainable development for lifelong learning to provide a quality system. This study aimed to reveal metaphors, barriers, and facilitators on educational sustainability based on the teachers’ views. For this aim, the study was designed with a phenomenology pattern. The study group was selected through purposeful criterion sampling and consisted of teachers. For collecting data, a semi-structured interview was used. The findings showed that (a) educational sustainability was perceived metaphorically as continuity, order, executive action, resilience, goal orientation, (b) education policies, stakeholders, management style, environment, and change were barriers to educational sustainability; (c) education system, improvement of administrative processes, building a future-oriented structure, increasing quality, breaking the influence of politics in education, following the developments and considering common values should be carried out to eliminate these barriers; (d) educational policies, creating opportunities and administrative actions were both facilitators and practices to increase these facilitators for educational sustainability.