What do secondary school students in North-East Romania know and think about sustainable development?

Abstract

As complex global challenges threaten our children’s future, there is little international debate that schools must foster education for sustainable development (ESD) by unpacking sustainable development (SD) themes and stimulating (meta)cognitive growth towards higher-order epistemological stances conducive of innovation and transformation. Reform is, however, a different story. In countries like Romania, the traditional system manifests substantial inertia beyond declarative adherence to ESD, while students’ voices remain typically unheard and unpromoted. Our study appraises the perspectives of 17-year-old students from both urban and rural NE Romania regarding the perceived sources of SD awareness and knowledge, the SD themes of highest personal significance and how SD should be featured in the school curriculum. From the 496 students participating in our online questionnaire-based survey, we learn that school—and specifically Geography—is the main vehicle for SD knowledge and is held most responsible for achieving ESD. Eradicating poverty, Access to education, Wellbeing and Access to Health care are the SD themes of most interest, much more than Action for climate or Alternative sources of energy. We also identify poorly understood SD themes and discuss the significance of all these results in a national and international context.

Keywords:

• Education for sustainable development
• Geography
• Romania
• students’ perception

Acknowledgments

The authors of this paper wish to thank all students who participated voluntarily in this study and to their schools for allowing this data collection. We send a special thank you to Ioana Crețu for scientific writing advice and feedback.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mona Lissa Chiriac

Mona Lissa Chiriac is a PhD student at The Faculty of Geography and Geology, “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iași, Romania and an educational consultant. She has a Masters degree in Education from Cambridge and has been working in international teacher training for the past eight years. She has got 18 years of experience as a geography teacher. Her research interest is in the field of education, education for sustainable development, teacher leadership and teaching and learning strategies.

Corneliu Iațu

Corneliu Iațu is a professor at “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iași, with about 30 years’ experience in higher education. He is a specialist in Human Geography and has published articles and books on the geography of settlements and population, economic geography, political geography and sustainable development territory planning. He is the president of the Romanian Geographical Society and the pro-rector of the university. He is the editor of several geographical magazines and the organiser of international scientifical conferences. He has been coordinating doctoral studies since 2009.