Education for Sustainable Development in Educating Cities: Towards a Transformative Approach from Informal and Non-Formal Education

Miquel Àngel Essomba, Pilar Lleonart, Laura Alfonso and Hye Bin
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Miquel Àngel Essomba: Departament de Pedagogia Aplicada, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Catalunya, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
Pilar Lleonart: Institut Municipal d’Educació, Ajuntament de Barcelona, Plaça d’Espanya 5, 08014 Barcelona, Spain
Laura Alfonso: Dirección de Ciudades Educadoras, Municipalidad de Rosario, 711 2° piso, Rosario 2000, Argentina
Hye Bin: Department of Lifelong Education, Changwon Municipal Government, 151 Jungang-daero, Seongsan-gu, Changwon-si 51435, Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-14

Abstract: This paper summarizes the main findings of research on education for sustainable development (ESD) at the international level. The context of the research regards educating cities, or local administrations committed to education through all their policies with the purpose of transforming their territories through a human rights approach. The research’s goal is to explore to what extent educating cities are capable of coping with the three ESD challenges faced today: the gap between policy and practice, the lack of a transformative approach and the hegemony of formal education. To do so, we selected three educating cities with an important background on ESD—Barcelona, Changwon and Rosario—and we implemented a case study method. A detailed analysis of all the data obtained reveals that educating cities are suitable frameworks to overcome the current ESD challenges. Their ESD initiatives count on a significant impact on citizenship, by promoting interdisciplinary, intersectorial and participatory processes mainly in informal education settings. Further research needs to be developed in order to draw a broader analysis.

Keywords: sustainable development; education for sustainable development; educating cities; non-formal education; informal education; Local Agenda 21; sustainable development goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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