Competencies in Education for Sustainable Development: Emerging Teaching and Research Developments

Gisela Cebrián, Mercè Junyent and Ingrid Mulà
Additional contact information
Gisela Cebrián: Department of Pedagogy, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Campus Sescelades, 43007 Tarragona, Spain
Mercè Junyent: Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, G5-126 Campus UAB—Bellaterra, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
Ingrid Mulà: Institute of Educational Research, Universitat de Girona, 17004 Girona, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-9

Abstract: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development clearly reflects the urgency to embed the principles of education for sustainable development (ESD) into all levels of education. ESD, understood as an integral part of quality education and all educational institutions, from preschool to higher education and in nonformal and informal education, can and should foster the development of sustainability competencies. This Special Issue entitled “Competencies in Education for Sustainable Development” responds to this urgency and the papers presented deliver recent developments in the field of ESD competencies. They focus on various perspectives: systematic literature reviews; curriculum developments; meta-analysis of the interrelation between sustainability content, competencies developed and pedagogical approaches used; testing and validation of evaluation tools and processes for sustainability competencies; and the development of conceptual models focused on different subject areas and educational levels (higher education, primary education, rural schools, external support services to schools, and extracurricular activities). The contributions indicate how the field of ESD competencies in the area of sustainability has become a major focus in recent years. Further research efforts need to be put into operationalizing sustainability competencies and developing tools to measure and evaluate students’ and educators’ competencies development.

Keywords: competencies; education for sustainable development; evaluation; pedagogical approach; curriculum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/2/579/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/2/579/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:2:p:579-:d:308035

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().