Currently reading Corres et al. (2020): “Educator competences in sustainability education: A systematic review of frameworks”

What competences do educators need to Teach for Sustainability? Corres et al. (2020) review 14 articles that describe educator competence frameworks (all of them from within Europe, but not chosen for that specific reason!). My main takeaways below! 

First, I absolutely love their first sentence in their introduction: “In the face of current socio-environmental challenges, being an educator is a complicated task.” Yep, it’s good to see that acknowledged!

Next, there is a discussion of competence models, and of how they not always live up to the original ideas behind them: “on occasions, competence-based approaches pretend to be established as technique prescriptions without conceptual reflection and theoretical frameworks around how learning is conceived, tending to bare in a pragmatic and reductionist vision. Such vision can limit competences design and evaluation to the domain of “knowing how to do”, which is punctual and procedural, out of context, as a way to define and register discrete and fragmented behavioral tasks”

Corres et al. (2020) coded the competencies from those 14 framework onto the UNECE framework. The most common competences they found are Critical Thinking (in all studies), Connections (in 9 studies), Participation in Community (8), and Learning to Live Together (7). Next, it’s Emotions Management and Achieving Transformation, which show up in 6 articles each, so in less than half of the frameworks under investigation here.

They also looked into what those publications suggest about what pedagogical strategies might be used to support teachers to develop those competences. Some examples are

• Learning to Know: Peer discussions and planning a research process together
• Learning to Be: Role plays and interdisciplinary teams
• Learning to Do: Real-world problem solving, excursions to meet external stakeholders, research projects on real sustainability problems. Also, involving the educators in other active learning strategies like developing blogs, planning outdoor activities, …

Generally, they conclude that it is important to understand that “It is not the same to prepare educators for enhancing their competences in sustainability issues (i.e., teaching future teachers to recycle) than training for improving their competences in Sustainability Education (i.e., teaching future teachers to know how to handle contradictions within sustainable dilemmas exposed in a class).” Most of the frameworks focus on knowledge and skills but neglect how to actually foster transformation, how to deal with value conflicts or emotions. And then looking at what methods are suggested to foster those competences when they are part of the frameworks is even more frustrating, since there isn’t really anything groundbreaking coming out of their review. I guess there is still plenty of work to do in academic development (and if you know of any good studies or other places with suggestions that could help, please send them my way!)

P.S.: Corres et al. (2020) write that some of those “pedagogical interventions approached the educator as a student in the hope that through experiencing and doing the activities they could replicate them in their role as educators […]. However, these interventions did not include spaces for reflection on how the educators could relate the competences they were acquiring as students with their role as educators.” We just recently had an article accepted that deals with exactly this topic: How it is good to model methods, but how you then also should provide the space and prompts for reflections. Interesting to see that pop up here, too!

Corres, A., Rieckmann, M., Espasa, A., & Ruiz-Mallén, I. (2020). Educator competences in sustainability education: A systematic review of frameworks. Sustainability, 12(23), 9858.

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Learning for the Future: Competences in Education for Sustainable Development, ECE/CEP/ AC.13/2011/6. 2012. Available online: https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/esd/ESD_Publications/Competences_Publication.pdf

Featured image from after a dive on a sunken port from 300 BC in Cyprus. Miss the blue water!