The Differences across Future Teachers Regarding Attitudes on Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development

Abstract

In the search for sustainable development, in which the ecological footprint is carefully considered by consumers and companies, teachers play an important role within a social and economic framework. This role relates to aspects of social responsibility. It should involve knowledge about education for responsible consumption in order to care for the environment both individually and socially. Considering this, the aim of this study is to find out whether there are differences in the level of awareness and the habits of future teachers of Early Childhood and Primary Education regarding sustainable social responsibility. A non-probabilistic sample of 30 Early Childhood Education degree students and 22 Primary Education degree students was used. Semi-structured interviews and an inductive process were conducted to examine the importance of Sustainable Development in society, the relevance of Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development (individual versus corporate), the attitudes and habits relative to Sustainable Development and the education on Sustainable Development in schools: knowledge, attitudes, and proposals. Students agree that they consume excessively. This is everyone’s individual responsibility (as regarded by all participants), although changes could be supported by institutions and companies (Early Childhood education students argue in favour of corporate responsibility). Knowledge deficits were identified in relation to production, distribution, and sale processes. They consider education to be the main factor for sustainability, while society is ranked as the least important, observing an evident disagreement in relation to environmental and economic factors (perception of collective responsibility; Early Childhood versus Primary Education students). Finally, they also outline teaching proposals (active and participatory) to foster education for sustainable development at schools.

Perceptions of Teachers in Training on Water Issues and Their Relationship to the SDGs

“…To address this, governments, producers and consumers must actively participate in reducing water risks so that food security is guaranteed, thus creating a balance between human well-being and natural resources [31]. Social responsibility, whether individual or corporate, is a right and a duty that citizens must exercise to lessen their negative impact through actions aimed at tackling and reducing problems [32,33]. Therefore, there is a need for society to be aware and act responsibly through pro-environmental behaviours.…”

“…Therefore, there is a need for society to be aware and act responsibly through pro-environmental behaviours. Several studies highlight the importance of raising awareness among the population, with education being a relevant factor in the demand management and proper use of water [10,23,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. In fact, it seems that the higher the educational level of people, the greater their awareness about the quality of water and the damages caused by pollution [10], although it has no correlation with conservation behaviours [6].…”

“…Schools and universities are key elements for promoting this through the implementation of educational strategies which, by raising awareness of water issues, are able to develop sustainable attitudes, skills and competences in the members of society that promote their social responsibility [32,33,38,40]. The sociocultural context is related to the social representations about the causes, consequences and solutions to the water problem [24], so educational institutions are essential for raising awareness about water.…”

“…The sociocultural context is related to the social representations about the causes, consequences and solutions to the water problem [24], so educational institutions are essential for raising awareness about water. Moreover, because it has not yet been adequately included in the current educational curriculum [35], the role of teachers as managers of this knowledge and awareness is very important [32,33].…”

“…The 2030 Agenda proposes 169 targets to be achieved globally through 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), so that societies are able to respond to the current situation. Sustainable water management is related to various SDGs, among which it is worth highlighting global access to food and the eradication of hunger (SDG 2) [11][12][13]16,28], good health and well-being (SDG 3) [8,9,11,13,15,17,18,22,26,[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], quality education (SDG 4) [32,33,38,39], clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) [7,[13][14][15]27,[42][43][44]46,47,51], sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11) [6,8,12,13,17,[26][27][28]…”