Recontextualising Education for Sustainable Development in pedagogic practice in Vietnam: linking Bernsteinian and constructivist perspectives

Abstract

This paper investigates how ESD is recontextualised in pedagogic practice in geography teaching in Hanoi, Vietnam, with the case study in two schools. Empirical materials for this study include video recordings and observations of 15 geography lessons conducted between 2016 and 2019. The lessons were selected based on the areas where the teachers thought they would be promoting ESD. Bernstein’s Sociological Theory of Education (1973-1996) was used as the theoretical frame for analysing the pedagogic practice. Our findings show that (1) an explicit hierarchy frames the interaction between teachers and students; (2) the selection of knowledge and skills is governed by strong classification and framing of curricula and textbooks; (3) teachers follow the sequence of knowledge in the textbooks; (4) the teachers’ evaluation of the students is based on examining how well students reproduce the textbook contents. The observed pedagogic practice demonstrates a performance-based model of pedagogy, in contrast to a constructivist approach, which the tenets of ESD call for. We conclude that the implementation of the global principles of ESD could help educators/teachers face the challenges of applying a more transformative, constructivist pedagogic practice in Vietnam.

Keywords:

• Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
• Bernstein
• pedagogic practice
• geography teaching
• Vietnam

Acknowledgements

This study is supported by World Bank Project “Enhancing Teacher Education Program” (HD1.3.1D Nghien cuu phat trien nang luc cho giao vien trong boi canh Giao duc phat trien ben vung – Promoting teachers’ competencies in Education for Sustainable Development). We are grateful for this support. We would like to thank the anonymous participants (teachers, students and principals in the schools) who contributed data to this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Appendix 1. Summary of geography textbook 12, pages 88 and 89.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article

Notes

1 United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization

2 The Agenda referred to the importance of education in achieving sustainable development in Vietnam as follows: “Humanity is at the heart of SD. Two of the most important tasks are to improve the educational system and to raise awareness of SD in all people, communities, businesses, state-owned organisations, and agencies”.

3 We are aware that ESD and constructivist learning are not about knowledge alone. However, in this case, “knowledge” is the language of the theory.