The years 2005-2014 marked the United Nations' Decade of Education for Sustainability, during which time nations were encouraged to incorporate sustainable development (SD) into school curricula. To determine whether Swedish schools have successfully improved students' perspectives on sustainability, the authors conducted a large-scale survey of students in grades 6 and 9. This knowledge can help schools improve the way they incorporate sustainability, and help students become more informed about and engaged with sustainability.
In Sweden, several organizations and networks assist schools in implementing sustainability education. The organizations provide resources and activities, and evaluate schools' SD efforts. The authors of this article investigated whether students in the schools involved with these SD organizations were more aware of sustainability than students in schools not explicitly focused on SD. Because the relationships between environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors are complex and not fully understood, the authors chose to study all three of these components holistically, as opposed to isolating a single component. The authors use the term Sustainability Consciousness (SC) to refer to a persons' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors about each of the three dimensions of sustainability (i.e., environmental, social, and economic).
The researchers chose to study students in the 6th and 9th grades, because in the Swedish school system, these are the grades by which certain curricular goals are intended to be met. The researchers used several nation-wide registries to compile a list of all Swedish schools that were actively participating in a SD organization program. Within each of the 18 actively participating schools that included 6th and/or 9th grade classes, the researchers randomly selected a maximum of two classes, resulting in a sample of roughly 1,000 students. To select a comparison group, the researchers compiled a list of schools that were not involved in a SD program, but that were each similar to one of the SD schools in terms of size, location, and socioeconomic factors. They sampled the same number of classrooms from the set of 18 non-SD schools, resulting in a sample of over 700 students.
The researchers surveyed all participating students with a modified version of an existing SD questionnaire. The survey instrument asked students to rate their level of agreement with 50 statements on a scale of 1-5. The statements involved knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding all three dimensions of sustainability. The researchers used statistical methods to examine differences in students' responses between the SD and non-SD schools.
Among 6th grade students, SD schools were correlated with higher overall SC than non-SD schools (where a higher SC indicates greater SD knowledge, more positive SD attitudes, and more sustainable behaviors). The environmental dimension of sustainability was the most strongly increased by SD education in this group. Among 9th grade students, differences between SD and non-SD schools were less pronounced. Counterintuitively, students at SD schools actually had lower SC than students at non-SD schools. Statistically, this was primarily driven by the social dimension of sustainability, meaning that 9th graders at SD schools had less knowledge, poorer attitudes, and fewer behaviors regarding social issues. Both grade levels demonstrated differences in the way girls and boys responded to SD education. Overall, girls appeared to have greater increases in SC than boys when enrolled in SD schools.
An important caveat to this study is that a school's involvement with a SD education organization is not necessarily a perfect indicator of the extent to which that school incorporates SD. Schools defined in this study as SD schools could be incorporating sustainability only minimally, whereas those defined as non-SD could be independently incorporating sustainability without external aid. In addition, because of social, educational, and political differences, SD education in Sweden may be different from SD education in North America. More research would be necessary to determine how SD education programs influence students' SC in other countries.
The authors conclude that the implementation of SD education in Sweden has not been completely successful. They hypothesize that 6th graders' heightened consciousness of environmental sustainability was the result of a tendency for educators to focus primarily on the environmental dimension. To balance this, the authors recommend that SD schools intentionally incorporate more social and economic content into the curriculum. The authors cite a previous study that suggests 9th grade students were less interested in environmental and social issues than other grade levels, which could potentially explain why SD education did not appear to increase their SC. However, the authors are unable to offer specific suggestions on how to address this. Overall, the authors recommend that educators tailor their SD education to the appropriate age ranges, and pay careful attention to balancing the different dimensions of sustainability.
The Bottom Line
<p>In Sweden, nationwide efforts to incorporate sustainable development (SD) into school curricula have been operating for over a decade. The authors of this article sought to evaluate the success of those efforts by surveying almost 2,000 students in the 6th and 9th grades. The results suggest that 6th grade students in sustainability-focused schools had a greater understanding of SD, especially the environmental dimension, than students in comparison schools. On the other hand, 9th grade students in SD-focused schools demonstrated slightly less understanding of SD than students in comparison schools. The authors conclude that there is still significant room for improvement among Swedish schools, and recommend that all educators use educational SD materials that incorporate economic and social dimensions of sustainability in addition to addressing environmental dimensions.</p>
Research Partner