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Character Qualities in Educating for Sustainability

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Quality Education

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

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Synonyms

Definitions

Character qualities: For this entry we understand “character qualities” as set of competences that overarch knowledge and traditional skills by being relevant to a wide range of work settings and facilitating adaptation and flexibility in collaboration work around complex issues. From that perspective, the term character qualities embeds aptitudes, attitudes, behaviors, mind-sets, personality, and values (e.g., Tubbs and Schulz 2006; Harden et al. 1999).

Background

The complexity and the urgency of the Sustainable Development Goals, understood as wicked problems (Oostra 2017, p.8), requires from education to move beyond foundational literacies and traditional set of skills. While twenty-first-century skills frameworks also include sets of meta-competences (Delamare Le Deist and Winterton 2005, p.30) as the ability to understand and deal with complex environments, there is still a gap in how educational institutions incorporate them in the curricula or create...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Windesheim Honours College, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, The Netherlands

    Maria Garcia Alvarez

Authors
  1. Maria Garcia Alvarez
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Correspondence to Maria Garcia Alvarez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. European School of Sustainability, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. Center for Neuroscience & Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Anabela Marisa Azul

  3. Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo, Brazil

    Luciana Brandli

  4. Istinye University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Pinar Gökcin Özuyar

  5. International Centre for Thriving, University of Chester, Chester, UK

    Tony Wall

Section Editor information

  1. Indira Gandhi National Open University, Regional Centre, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

    Umesh Chandra Pandey

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Garcia Alvarez, M. (2020). Character Qualities in Educating for Sustainability. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Quality Education. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69902-8_111-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69902-8_111-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69902-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69902-8

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