Education for Agenda 2030: What Direction do We Want to Take Going Forward?

Leire Agirreazkuenaga

doi:10.3390/su12052035

Abstract

In the field of education, the concept of environment and sustainable education, and the use of some terms in this field, have developed since their beginning. The United Nations Agenda 2030 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) gives some clues about and opportunities to reflect upon which concepts and directions to take in the field of education towards promoting sustainability. This paper addresses the issue of the currently fragmented concepts in relation to environmental and sustainability education, and proposes a more comprehensive vision to better advance the path towards education and sustainability. This paper: (1) addresses the main historical milestones in the construction of the concept of environmental education and education for sustainable development; (2) analyzes the issue of which direction we should take within the framework of education in the era of the SDG Agenda 2030, taking emerging concepts such as learning for sustainability and sustainable education as references; and (3) proposes a holistic approach, described as education based on values. We conclude that a new integrative approach inspired by the education based on values concept, and integrating other concepts, will help to better conceptualize sustainability in education, as explained in the proposed model.

Highlights

In the field of education, the use of terms such as “environmental” or “sustainability” has evolved since their beginning
To answer the research question regarding which direction we should take in the field of education within the framework of the international Agenda 2030, learning for sustainability [17] and sustainable education [16,18,19] approaches are taken as references
The aim of this target is expressed as “ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship”. In this context, emerging concept of Learning for sustainability (LfS) are considered appropriate for analysis. It is a concept developed in Scotland by Higgins and Christie [17] to define the reflections of Lavery and Smyth [32] and McNaughton [33] that gave rise to the philosophy and pragmatic development of learning for sustainability (LfS): “LfS offers a holistic pedagogical approach that seeks to build the values, skills, and knowledge necessary to develop practices within schools, communities, and, at governance levels within teacher education, accord with the collective aim of taking action for a sustainable future” [17] (p. 554)

Summary

Introduction

In the field of education, the use of terms such as “environmental” or “sustainability” has evolved since their beginning. This definition from Stapp served as a precursor for those that were subsequently proposed, such as that of the International Unit for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) [21] Stapp argued that this approach to education was different from the one offered by the conservation approach, because the latter was aimed at natural resources and not so much at the community’s environment and its associated problems. The latter idea was emphasized by the sentence “the role of the citizen in working, both individual and collectively, toward the solution of problems that affect our wellbeing” [20] Already back this definition was close to what is promoted today, from knowledge to action; motivation and involvement of citizenship

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