Levels of Transformation in Sustainable Curricula: The Case of Geography Education

Abstract

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015 have created renewed interest in sustainability in education. Geography education is a discipline that studies most of the issues related to the SDGs and has a significant role to play in the Anthropocene. Current debates on curricular sustainability and geography education suggest that geography educators are integrating sustainability in different ways but not all approaches have the same transformative impact. The aim of this study is to provide a theoretical model that determines different levels of transformation that could be helpful for advancing in curricular sustainability in geography education. The proposed model is called The Transformative Sustainable Curricula (TSC) model. Its development has relied on two processes that have involved, at the same time, two different methodologies: the creation of the model through documentary analysis, and its validation from interviews with experts in education for sustainability and geography education. The model is structured in three levels or stages: adaptation, reform and transformation. Each level has been characterized according to the following elements: the perspectives of sustainable development; the type of sustainable education; transformative learning; ecology of knowledge; institutional integration; context, change and community. The proposal makes teachers aware of where their teaching practice is located and how to move forward. It is also useful to determine what elements constitute a prop for sustainability and how these can guide educators and scholars in scaling vertically and horizontally their contribution towards a geographic education that is more sustainable and transformative, should they wish to do so