Transformative Pedagogies for Sustainability Competence Development
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 5152
Special Issue Editors
Interests: academic staff professional and transformative learning; curriculum management; readiness for change; problem-based learning; student agency and well-being; Q methodology
Interests: engineering education research; education for sustainable development; student learning and sustainability competence development; problem-based learning; challenge-based learning; academic staff development
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Over the past few decades, tremendous efforts have been made for the development of education for sustainability (ESD) across all educational levels. The overall goal is to equip students with knowledge and competences to actively participate in building a sustainable future for all through pedagogies that are transformative and promote a “whole person” educational approach, involving the “brain” (to know), “hands” (know how), “heart”, and “spirit” (know what and how to be).
Despite the efforts in recent years, including the European Framework GreenComp, to guide researchers, practitioners, and institutions toward the development of sustainability competence for a more sustainable education, it remains challenging to integrate it into the formal curricula at all educational institutions. Therefore, the outcome of such initiatives, their implementation, and their impact on sustainability competence development need to be further explored.
The field is open for new ideas and research-supported practices. This raises new demands for exploring dynamic approaches to achieve this goal via research-based approaches and the employment of multiple research methodologies.
Therefore, this Special Issue calls for theoretical and empirical works that examine issues associated with the development of educational activities contributing to sustainability competence development.
Prof. Dr. Xiangyun Du
Dr. Aida Guerra
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- sustainability competence
- GreenComp
- education for sustainability (ESD)
- pedagogy development
- assessment
- professional learning
- active learning
- curriculum change
- educational policy
- transformative learning
- holistic education
- problem-oriented pedagogies (e.g., PBL, CBL)
- sustainability mindset
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