Abstract
A first part describes the state of implementation of Education for a Sustainable Development (ESD) from examples all around the world, showing its presence in most of curricula and syllabuses but with some differences among countries. A general problem is the teachers’ difficulty to take into account the multidisciplinary dimensions of ESD (ecological, social and economical) and to define their more or less impartial posture. ESD is also rooted in several kinds of values, some of them being linked to the preservation of the environment while others deal with universal human rights. Are teachers sharing these both categories of values all around the world? Are their conceptions, rooted in their values and social practice, different among various sociocultural contexts? Is there a correlation between the teachers’ conceptions on the environment and on human rights?
To answer to these research questions, a second part reports an international survey in 24 countries differing by their sociocultural and economical contexts (total = 8,749 teachers). The results show very significant differences among these countries. In the less developed ones, the teachers’ conceptions are more anthropocentric, for instance, revealing less awareness of the problematic limit of resources in our planet and less reticence to use GMO (genetically modified organisms). These teachers are more fervent believers in God and more religion-practising. They also agree more than others with sexist, racist and homophobic propositions: for instance, “It is for biological reasons that women more often than men take care of housekeeping”.
These points illustrate that changing curricula is easier than changing teachers’ conceptions and mainly changing their values and social practices. Training more and better all the teachers to ESD, including universal human rights, is an urgent challenge in any country.
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Notes
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Governo federal Brasil (2008). Educação Ambiental no Brasil, (March 2008), p. 9.
- 2.
Torres, M. (2009). La Educación Ambiental : una realidad en Colombia, 2009.
- 3.
- 4.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Malaysia: An Overview. By Dr. Siti Eshah Mokshein, Ministry of Education Malaysia (August 2004)
- 5.
- 6.
BIOHEAD-Citizen (2004–2008). Biology, Health and Environmental Education for better Citizenship, STREP CIT2-CT-2004-506015, E. C., Brussels, FP6, Priority 7
- 7.
“Biology, Health and Environmental Education for better Citizenship”. This project was focused on six topics: evolution, human genetics, human brain, sex education, health education and ecology and environmental education. We were coordinating this last topic. For each topic, syllabuses and school textbooks were also analysed (Caravita et al. 2008, 2012, Caravita and Valente 2013; Clément et al. 2006, 2008; Carvalho et al. 2011; Quessada et al. 2008).
- 8.
With the exception of biology teachers’ conceptions differentiating France and Portugal (Forissier and Clément 2003)
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to all our colleagues of the 24 countries, who gathered data in their respective countries. For 18 of the 24, it was done with the help of the BIOHEAD-Citizen project (Biology, Health and Environmental Education for better Citizenship, STREP CIT2-CT-2004-506015, E. C., Brussels, FP6, Priority 7).
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Clément, P., Caravita, S. (2014). Education for Sustainable Development: An International Survey on Teachers’ Conceptions. In: Bruguière, C., Tiberghien, A., Clément, P. (eds) Topics and Trends in Current Science Education. Contributions from Science Education Research, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7281-6_11
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