Abstract
This article presents the results of the EDINSOST project in relation to the university faculty’s practice concerns and the need to embed sustainability education in the Spanish Higher Education system. Four questions were devised to determine (1) which conceptions the university faculty has about sustainability in the context of the Spanish higher education (2) what sustainability competencies the university faculty holds (3) the ways in which sustainability teaching strategies are implemented and (4) the ways in which practical coursework related to sustainability is undertaken in a Spanish university context. The methodology that was applied was comprised of a discourse analysis of faculty focus groups. To that end, a category system and a focus group implementation protocol were designed and validated, as well as processes of construct elaboration based on the analysis of the focus groups’ discourses. Among the most relevant contributions stemming from the research questions regarding the faculty’s assumptions was the evidence that the holistic conception of sustainability is not addressed in all its dimensions and the environmental dimension is overemphasised. The need for training to teach sustainability competencies and the faculty’s lack of awareness were also identified. As far as sustainability teaching strategies are concerned, project-based learning prevails, with service-learning emerging as the most effective strategy, even though its application is hindered by faculty training gaps. Finally, the absence of sustainability in teaching guides and study plans and the scarce institutional support for establishing sustainability as a strategic subject in the university were significant findings.
Highlights
The most relevant ideas and contributions derived from the focus groups are presented
It was observed that the university faculty training and the pedagogical strategies had dominated the discussion in the groups
Other categories did not draw as much interest, even though they had been considered relevant to the integration of sustainability competencies in higher education [48,49]
Summary
In order to be capable of contributing towards transforming society, universities need to transform themselves first [9] In this regard, in recent decades, universities have passed from trying to make the campuses greener [10,11] to trying to make education and research more sustainable [12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. Instabilities have been observed in teaching on the different dimensions of sustainability Universities develop their economic and environmental aspects more than their social and ethical ones, and in general, a holistic view of sustainability is not presented [38]. Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), University of Sevilla (US) and the University of Salamanca (USAL)
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