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Abstract

The international Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) research and development project that has been conducted by the Organisation Mondiale Pour L’Éducation Préscolaire (OMEP) aimed to provide a research tool that might be applied to audit the practice of Education for Sustainable Development in Early Childhood Care and Education (ESDECCE), a means by which curriculum development targets could be set and a baseline from which progress might be measured. This chapter provides the rationale for the methods adopted and an account of the international trials carried out in the process of initially developing and in the subsequent evaluation of the Environmental Rating Scale for Sustainable Development in Early Childhood (ERS-SDEC). The application of a common research tool in ten countries inevitably involved us in discussions related to cross-cultural comparison. Compromises had to be made, but it is argued that ESD should be recognised as a ‘limit case’: Climate change, natural resource depletion, biodiversity, etc. are all global problems, and they cannot be solved by national policies alone. Common efforts and internationally shared understandings are a necessity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.327matters.org/Docs/RR356.pdf

  2. 2.

    http://www.unicef.org/crc/

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Siraj-Blatchford, J. (2016). The OMEP ESD Research and Development Project. In: Siraj-Blatchford, J., Mogharreban, C., Park, E. (eds) International Research on Education for Sustainable Development in Early Childhood. International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42208-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42208-4_2

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