Textbooks For Sustainable Development

Abstract

THE INTERCONNECTED environmental, economic, social and political challenges facing humanity call for education that enables young people to engage creatively and responsibly with the world. We need education for sustainable development – education that ‘empowers learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society, for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity’ (UNESCO, 2014a, p. 12). This guidebook aims to support textbook authors and publishing houses to produce a new generation of textbooks that integrate education for sustainable development (ESD). By doing so, it aspires to make learning relevant and eff ective. It also contributes to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015), adopted by 193 UN Member States in 2015. At the core of the 2030 Agenda are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the shared global ambition and intergovernmental commitment up to 2030 (see Box 1). Although this guidebook focuses on school textbooks, its approach should be seen as part of a wider process of transforming a variety of educational media – including images, audio and video materials – to engage students in immersive learning. The guidebook builds on existing work in ESD and related areas such as global citizenship education, peace education, human rights education, environmental education, development education, global education, global learning and others. It is intended for the stakeholders in textbook development: education ministries, national curriculum authorities, textbook writers and publishers. It can also be useful for international and non-governmental organizations that have a mandate for improving the quality of education; teacher educators; teachers; principals and head teachers; school boards; researchers and practitioners of ESD and related education. It is aimed at an international audience and recognizes that the understanding of ESD and the practice of it is contextual and the priority of sustainable development issues may vary across education systems. Textbook authors and educators are encouraged to use this guidebook as a source of ideas, tools and methods that can help to enrich content and pedagogy and complement their own individual and institutional strategies. What this guidebook off ers is concrete guidance for textbook authors on how to reorient the existing curriculum content towards peace, sustainable development and global citizenship. It primarily addresses authors of textbooks for primary and secondary education in four subjects: mathematics, science, geography and language (English). The selection of these subjects was a pragmatic and strategic decision rather than a refl ection of their importance in relation to others. Time constraints prevented other subjects from being included and those selected are ones that will optimize eff orts to mainstream ESD. Three of the subjects – mathematics, science and language – are usually core compulsory subjects in national curricula. Geography is a subject that naturally lends itself to ESD and provides rich insights into embedding that could be useful for other subject areas as well.