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Many research articles describe competencies that people need in order to think, develop, and enact a sustainable future. Based on findings from the political economy, this paper argues that it is the macroscopic decisions in the public sphere that have an impact on society and the environment. Therefore, decision makers in the economy, politics, and civil society are important actors to enable a societal transformation towards sustainability by making macroscopic decisions. Based on these assumptions, this empirical research article analyzes the competencies decision makers such as ministers, CEOs, or union leaders need to contribute to a sustainable future in their professional life. We conducted interviews with 14 high-level decision makers and analyzed their competencies based on Wiek et al.'s framework on sustainability competencies. The findings show how they enact and organize the competencies needed for steering the sustainable transition. Linking all competencies is particularly important, especially at the intersection of different systems, to develop a macroscale, system-oriented decision. The authors suggest to consider systems and interpersonal thinking as extremely interdisciplinary competencies and to put a focus on public-sphere actions when educating future leaders. Moreover, the results indicate that dealing with uncertainty, following one's own values, and building up resilience play a major role for decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational research has been highlighting the importance of defining key competencies and learning outcomes related to education for sustainability as a reference for the transparent evaluation of students’ learning in this domain. Drawing on a reference framework that identifies five key competencies in sustainability (i.e., systems-thinking competency, anticipatory competency, normative competency, strategic competency, and interpersonal competency), the study reported in this paper aims to understand whether, how, and to what extent these competencies are present in doctoral theses in Higher Education published in Portugal in the past ten years. To address this objective, a qualitative study framed in an interpretative paradigm was conducted, and a literature review was used as a preferential research method to elicit meaning, gain understanding, and develop empirical knowledge. The retrieved documents were treated using deductive content analysis, which was performed using WebQDA software. Results of the analysis show that the competencies considered in the reference framework are present in research on education for sustainability carried out in recent years in Portugal, with a greater emphasis on strategic and anticipatory competencies. Findings suggest that it is important to continue to conduct research on these competencies to successfully integrate them into educational curricula and teacher education programs.

To meet the sustainability challenges in the 21st century, students need to develop a unique human learning capacity for creativity, responsibility, adaptation, meaningfulness, and lifelong learning. Furthermore, current changes in the societal environment have given rise to the need for a new learning strategy that guides learners in perceiving reality as an interrelated purposeful system with meaningful limits rather than collections of facts or systems without limits, as done so far. This paper aims to verify its hypothesis and introduce the 21st-century Empowering Wholeness Adaptive learning model (21st EWA Edu). This is a unique learning strategy that enables a meaningful transformation of learning capacity and creates a unifying learning system of dynamic content, didactics, knowledge, skills, competencies, understanding, values, and behaviors. Over three years, data from three cohorts of students at the School of Business Administration were collected. To assess the impact of the 21st EWA learning approach, both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis were employed. The results suggest that the proposed model creates a learning system enabling the transformation of learning capacity while empowering students to become conscious and engaged lifelong learners, which is much needed for a truly sustainable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational research has been highlighting the importance of defining key competencies and learning outcomes related to education for sustainability as a reference for the transparent evaluation of students' learning in this domain. Drawing on a reference framework that identifies five key competencies in sustainability (i.e., systems-thinking competency, anticipatory competency, normative competency, strategic competency, and interpersonal competency), the study reported in this paper aims to understand whether, how, and to what extent these competencies are present in doctoral theses in Higher Education published in Portugal in the past ten years. To address this objective, a qualitative study framed in an interpretative paradigm was conducted, and a literature review was used as a preferential research method to elicit meaning, gain understanding, and develop empirical knowledge. The retrieved documents were treated using deductive content analysis, which was performed using WebQDA software. Results of the analysis show that the competencies considered in the reference framework are present in research on education for sustainability carried out in recent years in Portugal, with a greater emphasis on strategic and anticipatory competencies. Findings suggest that it is important to continue to conduct research on these competencies to successfully integrate them into educational curricula and teacher education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advancing transformations towards sustainability calls for change agents equipped with a new set of competencies. Such sustainability competencies have been articulated with multiplicity and ambiguity, which is counterproductive to joint and accelerated progress. A unified framework of sustainability learning objectives would provide guidance to students, educators, and administrators of sustainability programs. To this end, we carried out a systematic review of the relevant literature. After scanning thousands of publications, we identified over 270 peer-reviewed articles of highest relevance, spanning two decades. Despite appearance otherwise, we found that there is a high level of agreement among scholars over the sustainability competencies that students should be trained in. Expanding on the five key competencies, namely, systems-thinking, anticipatory, normative, strategic, and interpersonal competence, that have gained widespread use, this article synthesizes the new suggestions made over the past decade into a unified framework. It centers on 8 key competencies in sustainability (the 5 established and 3 emerging—intrapersonal, implementation, and integration competence), which are complemented by separate disciplinary, general, and other professional competencies. This comprehensive framework of key competencies in sustainability is applicable across disciplines and can guide faculty, students, and practitioners in their joint efforts to advance transformations towards sustainability.

In this paper, the author reviews UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD, 2005-2014) lead by UNESCO, discusses the nature of SDGs (2006-2030) adopted by UN in 2015, and stresses the importance of : whole institution approaches; curriculum management; and the consideration of key competencies in sustainability & Social Emotional Intelligence (SEI), in formal education context. Further, the author introduces the “WW-style Problem-solving Model” (Sato, 2020), which was developed based on the W-style problem-solving model (Kawakita, 1967) that originally developed in Japan as an anthropological exploration model. It is designed with the consideration of: (1) repetition between thinking level and experience level; (2) linkages between inductive and deductive inquiry processes; (3) strengthen the system thinking and collaborative approaches for the development of integrated problem solving. Lastly, the author puts the emphasis of: not only subject basis of home economics, but cross curricular approaches and transformative ways at institutional level in responding to the nature of SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world faces significant challenges that require transformative changes facilitated by Sustainability Change Agents (SCAs). Universities around the world have explicitly taken up the responsibility of developing in students the skills and knowledge (i.e., competencies) necessary to be successful SCAs. While there is clear convergence around planning competencies, intrapersonal and implementation competencies have recently emerged in the literature. These competencies will have to remain effective even in the face of adversity, yet too little is known about sources of motivation for SCAs and how motivation can be maintained despite these inevitable setbacks. Since the needed transformations will be collective processes, motivation to be a SCA needs to be understood in the social and realistic context in which they would be applied. This study sought to gain specific insights into: 1.) What motivates students to be SCAs? 2.) How do these SCAs maintain their motivation in the face of setbacks? 3.) What can higher education institutions (e.g., universities, colleges) do to better support the motivation of SCAs? In order to gain insights into these questions, 83 aspiring SCAs were surveyed and their responses analyzed using qualitative content analysis. For this group of SCAs, the key source of motivation evolved from a focus on nature, learning, and individual behavior to a more social view with a concern for structural change. Moreover, social networks and intrapersonal skills helped to restore students' motivation following setbacks. Despite being university students, the SCAs surveyed had already experienced significant setbacks and, largely without institutional support, learned strategies to overcome them and maintain their motivation. Motivation and the skills, knowledge, and experience of how to maintain the drive for positive change in the face of setbacks is crucial in order for SCAs to be capable of supporting the critically needed transformations, and universities must play their part in fostering the SCAs' capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Project-based sustainability courses require and facilitate diverse interactions among students, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors. Most project-based courses take an instrumental approach to these interactions, so that they support the overall project deliverables. However, as courses primarily intend to build students' key competencies in sustainability, including the competence to collaborate in teams and with stakeholders, there are opportunities to utilize these interactions more directly to build students' interpersonal competence. This study offers insights from project-based sustainability courses at universities in Germany, the U.S., Switzerland, and Spain to empirically explore such opportunities. We investigate how students develop interpersonal competence by learning from (rather than through) their interactions with peers, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors. The findings can be used by course instructors, curriculum designers, and program administrators to more deliberately use the interactions with peers, instructors, stakeholders, and mentors in project-based sustainability courses for developing students' competence to successfully collaborate in teams and with stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]