Prepared to act for a sustainable future? Early adolescents’ action competence as a learning outcome of education for sustainable development

In light of the current state of the planet and its subsequent effects on nature and people, a sense of urgency for taking action is felt by many. The topic of action-taking has been on the agendas of policy makers, researchers, and (young) citizens alike. All have at one point or another been overwhelmed by the formidable task they set themselves, wondering what competences are required for taking on the challenge, and how these can be developed and taught. Along with the research community, also international policy makers keep underscoring the importance of sustainable development in order to secure acceptable living conditions for current and future generations. Policy recommendations largely build onto the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that were described by the United Nations in 2015. They aim at working towards sustainable development, which was defined as a process of mutually interacting environmental, social, and socio-economic perspectives. Both the scholarly and policy communities agree that educational efforts at all levels are paramount if we are to promote sustainable lifestyles that would allow to take on the challenges involved. Education for sustainable development (ESD) has been put forward as an important tool for tackling current and future sustainability issues. With its components of holism, pluralism, and an orientation towards action, this educational approach is believed to foster students’ competence in taking action for sustainable development. The scarce studies on ESD effectiveness for fostering action competence within students, looked into the effects of holism and pluralism. Results described in the literature suggested that holism may support students’ knowledgeability about actions for sustainable development, while a pluralistic approach appeared to enhance their willingness to act and confidence in their capacities to perform SD actions, and in the impact of their behaviour. However, at the onset of the doctoral research presented in this dissertation, the concept of action competence was still fuzzy, regardless of the rich definitions that were available in the literature since researchers at the Danish school of Education had first coined the term in the eighties. Its richness lay in its view of action competence as an educational ideal that would support students’ ongoing development of the competences needed for taking action. Still, the entanglement of this educational approach with its dreamed-of learning outcomes, also caused confusion. Two different interpretations of the concept of action competence were present in the literature. Some studies treated action competence as an educational approach, while others viewed it as a learning outcome of educational approaches such as democratic health and environmental education, or education for sustainable development. Moreover, in order to monitor efforts made to implement ESD, measurement of learning outcomes was felt to be crucial. And yet, regardless of the rich history of research into cognitive learning outcomes of subjects such as mathematics, science, and (native) language, effectiveness research relating to action competence as a learning outcome of education for sustainable development has been scarce if not missing to date. The five studies presented in this dissertation aim to complement and add to the growing insight into what action competence is exactly, and whether certain educational approaches are promising for facilitating early adolescents’ action competence development. From a methodological perspective, we took a pragmatic stance in which the research aims and questions guided the flow of the five studies. Therefore, we adopted an exploratory sequential multi-method design, which is recommended for investigating complex real world issues, such as action competence and sustainable development, in social and educational contexts. The first study started with redefining action competence as a generic competence of (groups) of people. The concept was then exemplified in the context of sustainable development as action competence in sustainable development (ACiSD), which consists of the relevant knowledge and skills, willingness, and self-efficacy needed to contribute to sustainable development. Secondly, early adolescents were given a voice so they could teach us what actions for sustainable development they thought most urgent and at the same time feasible for someone their age. Based on the findings in the first two qualitative studies, we operationalised ACiSD and developed a valid and reliable questionnaire instrument (the ACiSD-Q) that allowed to measure certain features of ACiSD (study 3). The last two quantitative studies established the importance of the classroom level (study 4) and provided evidence for the merits of action-oriented ESD for early adolescents’ ACiSD development (study 5). This dissertation further developed the growing insight into action competence as a competence of (groups of) people who want to contribute to building a sustainable world for current and future generations without exhausting the planet. The first steps have been taken. We disentangled the different interpretations regarding the concept of action competence, made it measurable, and found empirical evidence for theoretic assumptions concerning the effectiveness of ESD for early adolescents’ ACiSD development. Consequently, the conclusion of this doctoral research is that democratic approaches to teaching, such as action-oriented education for sustainable development, can foster students’ action competence, and equip them for taking an active part in efforts needed to face future sustainability challenges.

Jaar van publicatie:2022

Trefwoorden:Doctoral thesis

Toegankelijkheid:Open