people and planet

16
FIGURE 16.5:
Environment is a theme of growing importance in textbooks
Percentage of textbooks that include an explicit statement on environment
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1950–1959 1960–1969 1970–1979 1980–1989 1990–1999 2000–2011
Environmental protection or damage
Global environmental issues
Global environmental movement
Environmental rights
Environmental movement
Note: Sample sizes for each period: 54 textbooks over 1950–1959, 88 over 1960–1969, 108 over
1970–1979, 103 over 1980–1989, 131 over 1990–1999 and 219 over 2000–2011.
Source: Bromley et al. (2016).
civics, social studies, history – and natural sciences,
where the relevant topics are taught most explicitly.
One approach would be to cover textbooks at the end
of primary, lower secondary and upper secondary
education. As textbooks rarely change dramatically
from year to year, gathering data every five years
would be sufficient. It would also be possible to
examine past trends.
Ensuring that questions are valid across countries with
different languages and cultures will be a challenge, but
asking multiple questions on each theme would reduce
errors associated with any single question. Questions
need to be factual to minimize interpretation by coders.
For instance, asking whether textbooks ‘discuss human
rights’ would lead to responses varying with the coder’s
understanding of this concept. But asking whether
textbooks explicitly use the exact phrase ‘human rights’
would provide more consistent responses.
Cooperation between governments and international
organizations is necessary for a global monitoring
system to work. National governments should give
researchers open access to curricular content and
information on how textbooks are developed and
approved. An international coordinating body such
as the IBE will be critical to the success of local data
collection efforts.
TEACHER EDUCATION
The mainstreaming of sustainable development and
global citizenship knowledge and skills in national
curricula and textbooks is a prerequisite to monitoring
country efforts to meet target 4.7. But it is not enough.
Teachers who are prepared to teach in areas related
to sustainable development and global citizenship are
needed. Are global citizenship, human rights, sustainable
development and comprehensive sexuality education
included in teacher education? The content of teacher
training programmes is seldom readily available, but
some information, mostly regional, has been collected.
In teacher training programmes in 10 countries in
Asia and the Pacific, information is very limited on
how teachers are trained in areas related to global
citizenship, including empathy, understanding
discrimination, cultural sensitivity, tolerance, acceptance
and communication skills. Yet, there are some national
examples. After Sri Lanka established a Unit for Social
Cohesion and Peace Education in 2008, head teachers,
teachers and teacher trainers attended orientation and
training in peace and values education. The Republic of
Korea reported that policy guidelines on Major Directions
for Training of Teacher Personnel encourage local
education offices to provide in-service training on human
rights (UNESCO, 2014d).
Various forms of in-service teacher education
on citizenship education have a component on
issues related to global citizenship and sustainable
development. Nearly one-third of 36 European countries
have programmes to help teachers develop professional
knowledge and competencies on citizenship. In Latvia,
national in-service training for secondary school teachers
includes programmes to develop citizenship education
competencies, including values and diversity in society
and quality of life and sustainability. Italy’s Puntoedu
Europa programme offers teachers online courses and
regional workshops on topics such as human rights,
intercultural dialogue and sustainable development
and environment (Eurydice, 2012).
National reports to the OHCHR on the second phase
of the World Programme on Human Rights Education
can help monitor the extent to which countries include
human rights in pre-service or in-service teacher
education, although the response rate was has been
typically low. Of the 28 countries that submitted
information in 2015, 7 reported integrating human
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CHAPTER 16 | TARGET 4.7 – SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP