Taking the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4 - quality and equity in education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030) as a global education policy, this article investigates the accompanying consensus politics. It shows how political consensus among 193 UNESCO member states over the national implementation of SDG4…

This study reports on how one whole-school community in Melbourne, Australia fosters sustainable education (SE). The initiatives and frameworks put in place within one independent school were investigated using an in-depth case study drawing on observations conducted over 12 months. Whole-school events and four focus classes, one from each stage…

In June 2020, an Australian Curriculum (AC) review was announced, particularly regarding content crowding in primary years, flexibility and deep understanding of core concepts. The language of the announcement highlighted again the 'competing-priorities' discourse that suggests a disjuncture between focusing on fundamental knowledge and skills of…

Sustainability learning is holistic and complex as it draws on diverse disciplines and can be interpreted differently within individual pedagogies. Embedding sustainability across and within business schools relies on developing suitable boundary objects. These may include representations such as models, frameworks or classificatory schemes that…

This article reviews Education for Sustainability (EfS) in the secondary sector across a range of countries. Drawing on journal articles, book chapters and official reports, it identifies some of the more successful approaches to implementing EfS within the secondary sector. The authors first discuss the importance of educating for sustainability…

Purpose: The achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for all communities and jurisdictions require a comprehensive roadmap that encompasses all dimensions of data infrastructure, social, economic, environmental and governance ecosystems. With this in mind, this paper aims to establish the link between the curriculum and intended…

The authors present a new approach to show how interdisciplinary collaborations among a group of institutions can provide a unique opportunity for students to engage across the science-policy nexus using the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Through collaboration across…

We report here a teacher action research project in which a Systems Thinking approach was implemented into a 15 h Depth Study for students in their final year of secondary chemistry. Students were introduced to the concept of Systems Thinking and the use of systems maps, along with the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development…

Purpose: This study aims to explore the role of planned, sudden shifts in lived experiences, in influencing learner capabilities towards improved problem-solving for sustainable development outcomes. The authors responded to employers of engineering and built environment graduates observing limited "real-life" problem-solving skills,…

Purpose: This paper aims to argue that substantive changes are required in both curricula and pedagogical practice in higher education institutions to challenge dominant epistemologies and discourses and to unsettle current ways of thinking about, and acting in relation to, the environment. Central to such a shift, it is argued, is the need for…

In this paper, we report on an investigation into initial teacher education students' (ITES) understandings of sustainability and the Australian National Curriculum Sustainability Cross Curricular Priority (CCP). We also explore their willingness and capacities to embed the CCP into their own teaching practices. The ITES (N = 392) completed a…

In the competitive market of higher education, government funding agencies consider universities accountable for ensuring a better alignment between educational processes, graduate capabilities and real world employability. Workforce leaders have developed new expectations about the capabilities of graduating students, expecting to employ…

This publication is part of our five-strand research project "Flexible Pedagogies: preparing for the future". It identifies six "new pedagogical ideas" offering new pathways for learning. These include: (1) actively involving students in learning development and processes of "co-creation" thereby challenging existing…

Higher education institutions have been encouraged to prepare their graduates to be socially and environmentally responsible professionals. However, previous studies have found a slow uptake of education for sustainable development (ESD) in university curricula, particularly in non-environmental disciplines. This paper investigates the process of…

Purpose: Interdisciplinary approaches to climate change teaching are well justified and arise from the complexity of climate change challenges and the integrated problem-solving responses they demand. These approaches require academic teachers to collaborate across disciplines. Yet, the fragmentation typical of universities impedes collaborative…