Education for Sustainable Development: The Choice of Pedagogical Approaches and Methods for the Implementation of Pedagogical Tasks in the Anthropocene Age

Abstract

Abstract Sustainable education and education for sustainable development (ESD) have witnessed a deserved number of research studies in the recent years. The present article proposes a holistic research framework for the research on sustainable education and education for sustainable development in the 21st century. The article aims to choose a more holistic research perspective by avoiding a piecemeal approach in education research. Moreover, it proposes some strategically important ideas about the use of approaches and methods for sustaining the generational readiness for sustainable development. The paper proposes a general framework for pedagogy and practice for ESD research which is open, holistic, strategic, sustainable, and integrated. A broader perspective has been developed as the relation of the ecological–cultural–social environment aspects seen in a broader adaptive evolutionary sense as a condition necessary for the development of a human species and the development of these conditions in the evolutionary process. The choice of a broader perspective is proposed by relating it to an observational study on Generation Z that many educators, social scientists and the populations have already started recognising as one of the participants in the intergenerational process. The phenomenon of Generation Z is new; its features have not fully revealed in their apparent form, yet. Furthermore, the generation has not reached its maturity yet, but the development of this phenomenon is inextricably related to the issue of generational commitment, which is also related to the evolutionary development. The observational study has been carried out by involving participants from VECC Daugavpils Vocational School. The evaluation of the participants’ real experience in a wider and broader framework has been used to draw strategic conclusions, which will help keep focus on the need to sustain generational readiness for sustainable development in the harmonisation of the choice of pedagogical approaches and methods.