Abstract
In the face of the socio-environmental crisis in which we are immersed, the initial training of teachers must assume the work in favor of a critical, committed, participatory citizenry capable of responding to the socio-environmental problems of the current and future world. The analysis of the initial 61 research projects on socio-environmental problems of four classes involving 240 students of the Degree in Early Childhood Education at the University of Seville (Seville, Spain) is presented. Under an interpretive descriptive approach according to a category system based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the UN (2015) and its targets, we can learn about their socio-environmental concerns and how they relate to the current 2030 Agenda. We obtain that of the 17 SDGs, around half of the final 42 research projects analyzed focus on sustainable consumption and project patterns and climate change, while problems related to poverty, hunger, or peace do not arise. In addition to allowing us to draw a portrait of the socio-environmental concerns of early childhood preservice teachers, the data obtained also gave us the opportunity to ponder the didactic possibilities that these types of formative activities bring to the training of teachers who are critical and committed to transforming the world.
Highlights
Many are the authors who point out that we live in an eco-social crisis of planetary proportions [1,2,3]
This, represents a fairly generalized focus: they inquire about a topic to acquire awareness of the topic while acquiring knowledge and information; please read the following quotes: One of the reasons why we have chosen this particular topic is the little information and education we have on it and that is why we wanted to go deeper into it (G-39, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7); We are not truly aware of the serious damage that we cause by throwing a bag into the sea or by leaving plastic bottles on the beach, etc. (G-49, SDG 14); We found this topic [child slavery] very motivating because there are very few people who are truly aware of it
We believe that our analysis based on categorization by UN Agenda SDGs and their targets together with the size of the sample studied (61 projects of 240 students involved in this study) have the potential to show an “X-ray” of the worries and concerns that preservice teachers have in respect of socio-environmental problems: on the one hand, we can see that their concerns are in line with those established by the UN Agenda, but, on the other hand, the results show that some problematic issues receive little to no attention
Summary
Many are the authors who point out that we live in an eco-social crisis of planetary proportions [1,2,3] The causes of this crisis are multiple and are the result of a variety of interrelated factors, amongst them the following stand out: the accelerated demographic growth unevenly distributed among the world’s regions and their levels of development; the overexploitation of resources; the uncontrolled economic growth; and the misconceptions in respect of the relationship between nature, man, and society. This undoubtedly shows the influence of human activity on the biosphere and its impact on the limits of our planet [4]. We refer to socio-environmental problems to emphasize the interaction and complementarity between their social and environmental aspects [5,6]
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