Abstract
The environmental education and the promotion of the sustainability are two of the main axes in the international guidelines around the world. Education institutions must play an active role to achieve environment and sustainability awareness, and government educational policies should provide education institutions the necessary tools. This study tries to analyze the way in which these topics have been integrated in the Spanish compulsory curriculum through the normative review. Specifically, a content analysis has been used to quantify environmental and sustainability references, both in the subjects they integrate and the contents and standards which they relate with. The results show that: (1) there is not a transversal consideration of these terms; (2) the integration is greater in the Secondary Education; (3) environmental and sustainability treatment is mostly theoretical and focused on instrumental subjects; (4) when the approach is practical, it is often linked to reflections processes. Thus, we conclude on the need for governmental institutions to increase the presence of these terms in the educational curriculum and to integrate them in a transversal way and, through specific content, skills that contribute to build a collective social awareness of the importance of these phenomena in our society, including them as content as well as in the initial and continuous training.
Highlights
The United Nations agreement “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” [1], which was adopted by all United Nations Members in 2015, is the current framework to deal with the present and future most urgent challenges for our planet and all their citizens.The 2030 Agenda is organized in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which are the successors of the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) established in 2000, by the United Nations
That means that if we focus environmental education in Higher Education Institutions (HEI), we will be leaving more than half of the population out of the Environment Action Program (EAP)’s requirements above mentioned and some of the SDGs targets (4.7, 12.7, 12.8, and 13.3) related to public environmental education and awareness
As we have previously indicated, we have detected a greater presence of content related to sustainability and the environment outside compulsory education, which means that there will be 38.3% [9] of the Spanish population whose environmental education will be considerably lower, and we will not achieve the objective of raising awareness among the entire population about the importance of sustainability and care for the environment; as indicated by the goals of SDGs 12.7, 12.8, and 13.3 that speak of ensuring that all people everywhere acquire the skills, education, and information necessary to address climate change and promote sustainable development
Summary
The United Nations agreement “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” [1], which was adopted by all United Nations Members in 2015, is the current framework to deal with the present and future most urgent challenges for our planet and all their citizens.The 2030 Agenda is organized in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which are the successors of the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) established in 2000, by the United Nations. Along the same lines of the Agenda 2030 SDGs, the European Union Council called on the European Commission to present a proposal for an 8th Environment Action Program (EAP) for the period 2021 to 2030 providing common priority objectives and keeping the 2050 vision from the 7th EAP, which took place in 2013 stating a framework for European environmental action to 2020 as a guideline for 2050 [3]. The content analysis linked to this stage is presented on the basis of two criteria: the number of references and the presence of both concepts In this way, the subjects where there are references to sustainability and the environment are first dealt with and ordered by the frequency of these references (following the structure of the table above). This is because, according to the regulations, this subject must contribute to students’ familiarity with nature and to the development of responsible attitudes towards sustainable development
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
