The Adapted Global Attitudes and Values of Sustainable Development for Education

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1 Open Science Journal of Education 2015; 3(2): 6-11 Published online May 30, 2015 ( The Adapted Global Attitudes and Values of Sustainable Development for Education Nawal Okour The Jordanian Environmental Society (Al Hashemyah), Jordan address To cite this article Nawal Okour. The Adapted Global Attitudes and Values of Sustainable Development for Education. Open Science Journal of Education. Vol. 3, No. 2, 2015, pp Abstract Sustainable Development (SD) is a remedial strategy for dangerous situations. SD can improve the quality of the life and the environment, both of which must be achieved to satisfy the needs of the present and future generations. SD is entirely linked with Education to be a new educational strategy of (SDE). This new strategy could activate raising awareness and gain values to protect environmental elements. This paper aims at identifying the adopted global attitudes and values of Sustainable Development for Education (SDE). The workshops of the 2014World Conference on Sustainable Development Education (WCSDE) are used as a sample. The qualitative analysis is implemented, the researcher analyzes the positive attitudes and values within the conference's workshops, and then the result of these attitudes and values are categorized into social sustainability, ecological sustainability, and economic sustainability. More investigation and justification were set up. Keywords Sustainable Development Education (SDE), Sustainable Development (SD), Social Sustainability, Ecological Sustainability, Economic Sustainability 1. Introduction Sustainable Development (SD) is a national strategy that was defined by the World Commission Strategy (WCS) (1987).It asked for attaining the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs. The commission asserted the need of new style of education to achieve SD. The WCS identified the strategy of Environmental Education (EE) as a tool for adopting SD. The commission obligated the developed and developing countries to incorporate EE in their educational systems as an interdisciplinary approach in their curricula. Okour(2008) says, this approach could enable students to observe, monitor, and to protect the environment. She continues, this approach asserts the interdependence of the environment, society, and the economy. It promotes and reorients the early basic education and its programs towards SD, so, public awareness and attitudes towards sustainability are developed. Sterling says that appropriate attention must be given to education as a subject to be changed (Sterling 2002). It is reported that in order to live harmony with our environment and to understand our behaviors children and adult should be surfed in knowledge and values that will agree with sustainability. Sandell et al. (2003) indicate that "there are three traditions of environmental education that have developed and have been all present in schools today: Fact-based environmental education, normative environmental education, and education for sustainable development" (p:159). They continue, the first and the second approaches were applied between 1960s and 1980s, while education for SD (SDE) approach has been declared just nowadays. Lidgren (2004:3) says, it appears that the time is right to move towards SDE. McDonald (2006) points that the period from 2005 to 2014 is declared as the Decade for Education for Sustainable Development by the United Nations, in which as Lidgren (2004:3) says, countries are encouraged to adopt the declaration and develop their movement towards SDE, and to pay more attention to this movement. McDonald (2006) says, "the United Nation called upon governments around the world to pay attention to Education for SD (ESD)" (p:1015). Tilbury (2004: 103) indicates for the elements of sustainability at curriculum such as systems thinking, creativity, flexibility and critical reflection, team work, and working across disciplines, United Nation (UN) (2012) defines Sustainable

2 7 Nawal Okour: The Adapted Global Attitudes and Values of Sustainable Development for Education Development Education (SDE) as an approach of teaching and learning that deals with human rights, poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods, peace, environmental protection, democracy, health, biological and landscape diversity, climate change, gender equality, and protection of indigenous cultures. Thus, SDE is adopted by UNESCO objectives. Its role focuses on developing people s attitudes, skills, and knowledge that could enable them to give right decisions now and in future. The core point of SDE strategy, Okour (2013) states, is the main request for aware and responsible people. This new strategy could activate raising awareness and gain positive commitment to protect environmental elements. Okour (2012) indicates that SDE can help pupils to; understand environment, live harmony with it and to change human s thinking. Park (2001) argues, using SDE approach, positive values could be instilled in our children from the beginnings; they can understand the importance of a balanced environment and ecosystems. He asserts the urgent system of thought that comes back to nature, and to understand the right of all entities. Fien (2002) underpins Park, SDE aims at helping people to understand the interdependence of the life on the earth. It aims at verifying the effect of actions and decisions related to resources' usage, which foster SD. It is concerned with developing people's awareness, values, and attitudes that enable them to be involved effectively in SD. So, for achieving its goals, environmental knowledge is very necessary to understand environmental actions. The report issued by UN (2010) to build a sustainable future, deals with people daily lives within the social, environment, and economic issues. The interrelationship of these issues relies on new thread of education that is called SDE, as how to solve environmental and social problems within the capacity of ecosystems. Thus, the UN conferences confirmed the importance of education in building people minds towards sustainable future. UN (2010) continues, despite the global program on Teaching and Learning for Sustainable Future there are still many affecting issues that need to be studied and solved at the Middle East and Africa, e.g., the depletion of natural ecosystems, unsafe water and its shortage, and deforestation and spreading deserts. UN (2012) reported that many conferences were held dealing with SDE such as; a) the Stockholm conference in 1972, it asked for reorienting education to solve human environmental problems, b) the WCS in 1987 that called, in its report, for developing education to cope with a variety of challenges within society, environment, culture, and economy, c) the Earth Summit, Rio 1992 that focused on education and its importance for applying SD strategy regarding biodiversity, climate change and desertification at national and international levels. Another conference, d) the World Summit on SD in 2002, held on Johannesburg, it asked for adopting Decade to SDE ( ). The UNESCO World Conference on SDE held in Bonn 2009 assessed the previous years in achieving the goals of SDE. It was shown, SDE as a current request is being applied within all educational polices and activities. The 2014 SDE World Conference, therefore, is not only the mark that ends the ESD Decade, but also an important milestone for pointing the way ahead. United Nation (2012: p 12) reports that the UNESCO (2012b) declares that SDE is not only teaching knowledge and principles related to sustainability, but it is education for social alteration of creating more sustainable societies. UN continues that SDE, in its widest sense, takes into account all education branches such as; planning, policy development, program implementation, finance, curricula, teaching, learning, assessment, administration. SDE aims at creating a more sustainable future by providing a coherent interaction between education, public awareness, and training. UNESCO (2004) asks for engaging SD Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).Universities could easily linked between generation of knowledge and transferring it to societies, thus, HEIs learners actively become the contributors of developmental issues in their societies. Cortese (2003) agrees with UNESCO's (2004) vision, he says that the responsibility of HEIs is represented by promoting awareness and values to create future sustainability. Consequently, professionals are qualified to develop and influence institutions at their societies. By this, the philosophy of SD is understood and its objectives are improved. A number of researches have been done on SDE. Kernaghan (2003), signifies for a strategic plan that ought to be adopted by decision makers and planners. He poses four questions to be considered when applying SD principles at HEIs: 1. Where are we now? 2. Where do we want to be? 3. How do we get there? 4. How do we make it happen? Thomas (2004), SDE or ESD should accept the probability of survival of our species, Thomas asks for positive obligation and commitment to life and its preservation. Sandell et al. (2003: ) adopt the ethnical aspect that is the center point to SD understanding, they assert the role of SDE in enabling students to join critical discussions about different alternatives and their outcomes. They consider the benefit of joining economic, social and ecological aspects to each other. Sherren(2005) has done a paper exploring an appropriate disciplinary content for generalist sustainability degrees. He used a questionnaire to extract participants' views regarding a university-based sustainability education that should be included in curricula. The sample was taken randomly from the attendances at the First International Conference on Ecological, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability, held in Hawaii at the end of February, There are various perspectives to curriculum design for both undergraduate and graduate levels. The findings were compared with curricula from existing Australian coursework programs and showed that a slight rebalancing towards the human sphere is necessary. In sum, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches on SDE ought to be adopted. These approaches reflect the

3 Open Science Journal of Education 2015; 3(2): wise use of natural resources efficiently and in far sighted way, and encourage ethical policies towards sustainable technological development. On the other side, the UNESCO asks for implementing the cultural and communication approaches. The first, deals with environmental interests and values that is the main core for SD. The second deals with disseminating SD knowledge, in addition to best practices and researches to its issues. Consequently, people s minds towards SD have been changed. In sum, the huge responsibility is reclined on education. It is the only process that can change the minds of people. It could monitor their actions so as not to overlap the limitations. DE as a new strategy could throw away negative activities. It can build a positive commitment towards the wellbeing of all livings within the capacity of their ecosystems. Most of the SD educators asked for adopting SDE in formal and informal teaching styles. They put the huge responsibility in developing our curricula to save the planet by creating aware people and ethicists. The main aim for SDE is to build children and youth responsibility towards future generation, on other words, their skills and commitment towards the environment and life's styles are inspired Problem of the Study Education for SD, as a new approach, empowers people to work for sustainable future. It develops the understanding of the world's issues related to economy, society, and the environment. While more reports on SDE have been ended, a great remains to be done. Therefore, researches on SD and education at the academic level stay crucial and vital to be investigated. As no sufficient studies done dealing with SDE, this one comes to bridge the gap happened from ignoring this subject at the academic level. Therefore, the researcher chooses the 2014 WCSDE document to be analyzed, it expresses the future period after 2014 beyond the end of the Decade adopted at 2002 conference Objectives of the Study The study aims at analyzing the 2014 World Conference on Sustainable Development Education (WCSDE)" proceedings. It also aims at extracting the positive values and attitudes related to environment, economy, and society Questions of the Study For achieving the previous objective, the study tries to answer the following question: What are the adopted values of Sustainable Development for Education (SDE) could be extracted from the 2014 World Conference on Sustainable Development Education (WCSDE)? 1.4. Significance of the Study It is hoped; this study could provide a deeper understanding of SDE. The importance of the study is derived from its subject, as SDE is a new global thread of education that joins environment, economic, and social issues. Such investigation may be considered a starting point towards establishing a new field for studying SDE goals and achievements, which, in turn, could offer insights on practical and decision makers' levels. It is from the first studies that deal with SDE at the national level. The benefit comes from its contribution in the field of education to be SDE Limitation of the Study The Study is limited to its sample as it used the document of the WCSDE. It is also limited to three aspects of environmental, social, and economic values embedded within the 2014 conference proceedings. 2. Methods The following methods are taken into consideration: 2.1. The Sample of the Study For achieving the study's objectives, the document of the 2014 WCSDE is used. The workshops of the conference grouped under the following: 1. Celebrating a Decade of Action 2. Reorienting education to build a better future for all 3. Accelerating actions for SD 4. Setting the Agenda for SDE beyond 2014 The researcher summarizes the conference aims; a) addressing the achievement and lessons learnt, b) understanding the ways to enhancing high quality education, c) introducing methods needed by SDE for moving SD to meet national and global needs, and finally, how to develop future strategies after ( Data Collection and Analysis Qualitative analysis was used, the researcher adopted Content Analysis method; the workshops done at the conference were read and understood. They were divided into small paragraphs or long sentences, followed by setting up the main themes for each paragraph. The explicit or embedded SDE attitudes and values were written. For the validity, another analysis was done by an expert in SDE. Holsti Formula was used between the two analyses, it was 87%. The researcher categorized the values and attitudes into three aspects; social, environmental, and economic values. 3. Results and Discussion After analyzing the 2014 conference workshops, the researcher categorized the following attitudes and values into three aspects as in table 1:

4 9 Nawal Okour: The Adapted Global Attitudes and Values of Sustainable Development for Education Table 1. The 2014 conference SDE values and attitudes No Social Values Improving education equality towards SDE Increasing childhood awareness, attitudes and values towards SDE Increasing women attitudes and values towards SDE Environmental Values Increasing attitudes and values towards environmental issues Reserving natural resources Seeking for alternative resources Protecting biological diversity Increasing attitudes and values towards climate change Economic Value Reducing poverty Increasing Green economics Reducing the consumption of natural resources Table 1 abstracted the analysis of the conference workshops. The researcher grouped the SDE attitudes and values under the following headings and sub headings: 3.1. Social Values The quality of education will be reinforced by SDE. The skills and knowledge are built through new methods stemmed from SDE line. The global conferences, e.g., the 2014 conference, asked for applying SDE at national strategies as a result of the United Nations (UN) conference 2002 that confirmed a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD, ). Accordingly, new plans and approaches are implemented to inspire a more sustainable world. The following social values and attitudes are extracted from the analysis: 1. Increasing attitudes and values towards improving education equality They asked for enabling networking and collaboration between SDE participants, developing efforts to achieve SDE goals, improving the quality of teaching and learning within SDE, and more understanding for climate change and reductions concepts. Thus, it is supposed that the goals at the 2014 conference are achieved. 2. Increasing childhood awareness, attitudes and values towards SDE Children are the focus of our world; the conference takes care for early childhood and pays more attention to the survival of children. They reoriented education to build a better future for all by questioning about how SDE reinforces the quality of education. The ability to change ought to be installed in children as they are our future generation. Thus, making a positive change in students' minds is a real request to live harmony with other in an efficient and far sighted way. By this, the school communities will be sustained and developed to be models for SDE. Consequently, the sustainable community will be created. The collective of students, schools, and communities with their place are transformed to SDE models. 3. Increasing women attitudes and values towards SDE The 2014 conference pays more attention to women; it asks for sharing women in education strategies, it pays attention to their role in building students' minds and thoughts. It is confirmed that women at the communities could play an essential role in educating children how to manage natural resources, and to offer more security and sustainability for these resources. The collective actions by women, men, and the young help in sustaining good quality of life for a long time, not for the present, but also for the future generations. Education can help in installing positive values to conduct right decisions to shape a well future within the contribution of a global culture of flexibility and peace. Consequently, it is recommended for evolving SDE beyond 2015 and strengthening SDE in the upcoming Hyogo Framework of Action 2, on the basis of the Global Action Program on SDE (GAP) priorities Environmental Values 1. Increasing Attitudes and Values towards Environmental Issues The conference asked for increasing awareness to learning environmental issue. Teaching and learning about these issues should be taken the more concern, but how could will be achieved? The answer for this question is embedded within Environmental Education (EE) styles; study about the environment, study in the environment, and study for the environment. Study about the environment enables us to know more about the issues that affected our environment. Study in the environment could enable students to practice the events at the place to be more sustained in their minds. By this, shifting from classic modes, the concrete action towards sustainability is encouraged. 2. Reserving Natural Resources Adopting educational programs ought to be done to support students' positive actions at schools, universities, and public people. Natural resources should be reserved and conserved to be sustained for future sons. The 2014 conference workshops asked for sustainable use for water, oceans, soil,., and electricity. These resources are the main pillars for our life in this world. Many methods could be taught to save important natural resources locally and globally. 3. Seeking for Alternative Resources Another request for our present students and people in communities, the 2014 conference asked for managing renewable resources. They asked for renewing active and simple technological methods to produce natural energy from solar, wind and water. Thus, the underlined spots for renewable energy development are now studied and educated. 4. Protecting Biological Diversity The prior value that has been taken concern, by the participants at the conference, is preserving and taking care for the national and international biological diversity. They called for fighting the frightened challenges faced in embedding the development in biological resources. Positive values and attitudes towards sustaining biological programs are acquired. These values are motivated by active sustained

5 Open Science Journal of Education 2015; 3(2): practices and proposals. 5. Increasing Attitudes and Values towards Climate Change The most concern of SDE strategy is paid for climate change. The developed and some of the developing countries responded for orienting their educational programs towards climate change. It is extracted; the science of climate change, human and social effects, lifestyles ought to be studied at schools curricula. Climate change, on the other hand, is not only a scientific issue, but it is also an ethical issue that should be focused on as it hits the poorest people in the world. Climate change is an economic and human problem. Climate change, regarding the 2014 view, is a major problem for the poorest countries; it constitutes a cause of poverty and decrease the progress at those countries. The dangerous weather actions, e.g., floods and storms, affect developing countries more than developed ones. They indicate, the negative impacts of climate change are represented by injuring the agricultural productivities, hurting the quality and quantity of drinking water. They state, injuring the health of human and other biotic creatures, because of increasing vector-borne diseases, is still occurs at a number of developing countries all over the world. In addition, climate change causes bad impact that harms ecosystems and biological diversity; it threatens the cities placed on seaside by raising sea level. To address this issue, we need the supporters of investments for the developing countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. New carbon technologies are needed to decrease greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Thus, an expensive cost is better than worse affected of carbon dioxide. For the importance of this issue, three international bodies adopt its activities; the Commonwealth Foundation, the World Bank and the Association of Small Island States. Consequently, climate change is the motivated point within the conference workshops; education is put as a Global Action Programs on SDE priority. They asked for national and international strategies to support these programs, and the participants were inspired to give more recommendations for building and developing such programs Economic Values The adoption of interdisciplinary approach is now taken into consideration. It focuses on various branches such as food security, and agriculture to achieve sustainability at rural and urban areas. Many economic values were extracted from 2014 conference such as: 1. Reducing poverty Reducing poverty is an indispensable request within the 2014 conference proceedings. They declared; the access of food for everyone should be confirmed; the crucial of agriculture in raising poor's income ought to be valued. They called for the security of food, and to achieve more job chances to build a sustainable integrated communities. 2. Green economics Green economics are taken into account in the 2014 conference. They focused on its role in reducing poverty, and in improving human wellbeing in the context of SD. Strategies nowadays are taken into consideration to shift away from classic natural resources into green one that are called renewable resources. Thus, the globe needs new technologies to supply producing renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. Technologies play a central role in changing the practices of industries that lead to unsustainable picture. Therefore, polices, plans, models, and culture ought to be altered towards green economics. Green economics aim at creating a new approach that works for the benefit of all human and nonhuman livings and ecosystems. This approach can balance between the environment and society to be integrated into environmental justice. Consequently, the glance is motivated from the access of people needs into more noble requirements represented by long term sustainability for the happiness of human and ecosystems with natural resources limitation. It asks for repairing, reusing, recycling the available resources to limit the expanding of out boundaries search for new natural resources. 3. Reducing the consumption of natural resources Reducing the consumption of natural resources is confirmed by Rio-20, it is the essential requirements for SD, followed by a number of global conferences on SDE. The coherences between the environment, society, and economy rely on managing the resources effectively and in far sighted way. Thus, education ought to be SDE to achieve the sustained livings. On other words, they asked for reducing the consumption of natural resources. It implies the consumption of food, electricity, water, fuel..etc. For the importance of this subject, the 2014 conference asked for developing a youth 10 year program on Sustainable Lifestyles and Education (SLE). Values towards managing freshwater are asked for; it is the basics for our life and development. They recommended for water professionals, water technicians, water education in schools, and water education for decision makers, communities, and mass media stakeholders. So, SDE's goal is achieved by skilled human capacities that are managed and educated to take practices for sustaining water. The most crucial for SDE are oceans, they still ignored at public level. Oceans need positive actions to be sustained forever; the importance of oceans' future health has not been realized within the conference proceedings. 4. Recommendations and Suggestions In the light of the results, the study recommended for: a Analyzing more international documents of SD strategies. b Adopting positive values and attitudes towards environment and its ecosystems. c Analyzing national curricula for installing SDE principles and goals.

6 11 Nawal Okour: The Adapted Global Attitudes and Values of Sustainable Development for Education The study also suggested the following: a Conducting more empirical researches coping with SD's social, environmental, and economic values. b Doing analytical researches dealing with values related to environment, economy, and society. 5. Conclusion To conclude, the advocators of SDE consider education the only process that could change the minds of people. It could monitor their actions so as not to overlap the limitations. The analysis results show that the 2014 conference asked for SDE as a new strategy that could throw away negative activities. The results also asked for positive values and attitudes towards the fields of economy, society, and environment. A set of values and attitudes for each field were extracted and discussed. Briefly, the strategy of SD and SDE and their agenda must be studied as an interdisciplinary approach that is not incompatible with our beliefs. Therefore, the balanced universe is occurred. References [1] Cortese, A.D. (2003), The Critical Role of Higher Education on Creating a Sustainable Future, Planning for Higher Education. [2] Fien, J. (2002). Education and Sustainability: Reorienting Australian Schools for a Sustainable Future, Tela Papers, No. 8. Australian Conservation Foundation, Melbourne. [3] Kernaghan, K. (2003), Integrating Values into Public Service: The Value Statements as Centerpiece, Public Administration Review, Vol. 63, No. 6. [4] Lidgren, A. (2004). A sustainable course for higher education. Master thesis. IIIEE, Lund University. Retrieved online on at [5] McDonald, C. (2006), Moving forward on educating for sustainability in Manitoba, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 14 (9-11), pp [6] Okour, Nawal. (2008). Environmental values and ethics among Yarouk University Students in Jordan. Unpublished PhD thesis, National Malaysian University (UKM). [8] Okour, Nawal. (2013). Environmental Management's Values and Ethics Among Jadara University Students in Jordan. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol.3 (7), pp [9] Sherren, K. (2005). Balancing the Disciplines: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Sustainability Curriculum Content. Australian Association for Environmental Education, Australian Journal of Environmental Education, vol. 21.The Australian National University [10] Sandell, K., Öhman, J. & Östman, L. (2005).Education for Sustainable Development: Nature, School and Democracy, Student literature, Lund. [11] Sterling, S. (2002) Sustainable Education: Re-visioning Learning and Change, Green Books, Bristol. [12] Thomas, I. (2004). Sustainability in tertiary curricula: what is stopping its happening? International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 5 (1), pp [13] Tilbury, D. (2004). Rising to the challenge: Education for sustainability in Australia.Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 20 (2), [14] UNESCO (2004), Higher Education for Sustainable development, Education for Sustainable Development Information Brief, UNESCO, Paris. [15] UNESCO. (2012a).National Journeys towards Education for Sustainable Development. Paris, UNESCO. [16] UNESCO. (2012b). ESD Sourcebook. Learning&Training Tools, No. 4. Paris, UNESCO. [17] United Nations (UN), (2010). The Millennium Development Goals Report New York: United Nations. [18] United Nations (UN). (2012). Report on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, Shaping the Education of Tomorrow Abridged. [19] World Commission on Environment and Development (WCS). (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [20] World Resources Institute, United Nations Environment Program, United Nations Development Program and World Bank. (2008).World Resources 2008, Oxford University Press, New York. [7] Okour, Nawal. (2012). Sustainable Development Environmental values among Yarouk University Students. Journal of Baghdad College of Economic Sciences, Vol.0 (29), pp