Whole School Approaches to Sustainability: Education Renewal in Times of Distress

In response to urgent global sustainability challenges, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Global Citizenship Education have been prioritized in the United Nations' Agenda 2030 under SDG 4.7. There is an increased awareness that treating topics such as global citizenship, sustainable development, climate urgency, and health and well-being as separate subjects or topics that need to be added to a curriculum is both ineffective (as these topics are highly interconnected) and problematic (as schools already have an overcrowded curriculum and that a focus on testable knowledge within disciplinary domains makes working with cross-cutting themes difficult). The nature of these interrelated topics is such that they require a new way of teaching, learning and schooling altogether.

This edited volume brings together a range of scholars and reflective practitioners from across the globe who are both investigating and enacting a whole school approach (WSA) in education for sustainability. While the WSA and related approaches, such as those advocated by EcoSchools, are becoming more popular, there is a lack of understanding of their underlying principles and their different manifestations in diverging socio-cultural contexts and educational levels. This volume delves into these issues as well as their effectiveness, possibilities for upscaling, professional development needs for WSA practitioners, interlinkages with more conventional curriculum requirements such as national curricula, expectations of students and parents, and more.

This is an open access book.