Implementing Education For Sustainable Development Esd

Author : Ying Syuan Huang
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (119 download)

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Download or read book Implementing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) written by Ying Syuan Huang and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The United Nations announced the 2005 to 2014 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Central to this declaration was the idea that the goal of attaining a sustainable future can never be achieved without education and learning for sustainable development. This idea has been widely accepted and supported by governments worldwide. To this date, most of the United Nations member states have national plans for integrating the framework of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into their education and sustainability policies. As ESD implementation has emerged as a political priority around the world, there is a growing need to critically examine the potential impact of ESD in bringing about the desirable changes for a sustainable future. With an attempt to contribute to this body of literature, this doctoral study seeks to understand in what ways and to what extent a nationwide education policy can (or have the potential to) contribute to global sustainable development. The goal of this doctoral study was to explore the lessons that can be learned from the Taiwanese experience of mainstreaming ESD into national education and sustainable development policies. To this end, this study examined the development and implementation of Taiwan’s ESD policies, with a particular focus on the Environmental Education Act––a nationwide environmental and sustainability education policy that emerged during the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The methodological framework of policy ethnography (Ball, 2016) was used to follow the Environmental Education Act across various contexts from the standpoint of policy actors, including lawmakers, policy implementers, school principals and administrators, and teachers (Griffiths, 2003). Sources of data included official texts, two-round of semi-structured interviews with 30 policy implementers of the Environmental Education Act, and approximately 70 hours of ethnographic observation with four policy implementers. Data were analyzed using a hybrid process of inductive and deductive thematic analysis (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006) in which both data-driven and theory-driven codes were used to interpret multiple sources of data. Important findings from this study include: (a) the government of Taiwan seems to have a strong political interest in ensuring the proper implementation of the Environmental Education Act in the Taiwanese society; (b) Taiwan’s Environmental Education Act appears to have realized UNESCO’s strategy of introducing and promoting ESD through multiple formal, non-formal and informal educational programs; (c) Chinese Legalism (a political philosophy of governance in ancient China) provided a useful framework to explore the historical and political traditions that seem to have shaped Taiwan’s ESD policies; and (d) current ESD activities have failed to meaningfully engage action that address the underlying drivers of our climate breakdown, and the policy implementers of the Environmental Education Act have come to see through this green-washing exercise. Drawing on the findings and analysis of this study, this doctoral research sheds light on the potential and the limitations of adopting UNESCO’s ESD framework to enable a sustainable future. First, this study highlights that, without critically reflecting on what to change, the impact of ESD can be limited in bringing about the necessary changes for creating sustainable societies. It also adds to the discussion on what types of social learning and education are necessary for achieving United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Additionally, this doctoral research contributes to the scholarly discussion of different political traditions, governing structures, and policy tools for ESD implementation in various political contexts. These discussions will have important implications for future education and sustainable development policies and practices"--