Connecting Sustainable Development and Heritage Education? An Analysis of the Curriculum Reform in Flemish Public Secondary Schools

Joris Van Doorsselaere

doi:10.3390/su13041857

Abstract

Heritage education is understood to be multifaceted. The way it is approached and conceived in formal educational contexts can differ according to the emphasis policy makers wish to establish. In Flanders, a region within Belgium, a curriculum reform took shape over the last seven years. This paper explores the recently introduced curriculum in Flemish secondary education, in light of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. The main aim is to investigate how heritage education and sustainability fit into the newly developed curriculum framework, and the way they are interlinked on a conceptual level. The qualitative research draws on a screening of policy texts, learning outcomes, and additional interviews with policy advisors. The results show that heritage education is implicitly present. Cross-curricular opportunities are built-in and can be linked to (a) cultural awareness and expression; (b) historical consciousness; (c) citizenship; and (d) intercultural communication. Sustainable development, and more specific ESD, anchored itself firmly and more explicitly into the framework as a transversal key competence as well. However, clear connections to heritage education are not set up in the learning outcomes.

Highlights

Historical consciousness and cultural awareness and expression seem to be the most obvious ones to look for traces of heritage education in the new curriculum
The social and civic aspects of heritage education form a common ground and starting point to link local heritage manifestations and familiar sustainability challenges to more global issues
Returning to the initial objective, the results show that heritage education is implicitly present in the newly adopted curriculum of the first grade of secondary education in Flanders

Summary

Introduction

Academic Editors: Vasiliki Brinia, Mark Winterbottom and Paola di Giuseppantonio di Franco. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. When reflecting on the use of heritage in educational contexts, it is mostly linked to history education. Heritage is not about the past, but about the present, according to David Lowenthal [1]. Instead, it can be interpreted as a social construct. Communities in the present preserve and give meaning to certain (local) aspects of the past. In educational contexts, the dichotomy between history and heritage does not need to be problematic or conflicting. In history lessons, it could be used when critically assessing historical sources

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion