Teaching the Global Goals: Leveraging teacher educators’ professionalism for sustainable development

Cooperating countries: South Africa and Austria

Coordinating institution: University of Innsbruck, Ann-Kathrin Dittrich, ann-kathrin.dittrich@uibk.ac.at

Partner institutions: University of Pretoria, University of Vienna

Project duration: 1 October 2023 - 30 September 2025

Budget: EUR 19.770

Summary:

This research project explored the current state of teacher educators’ professionalism within the context of Agenda 2030 in Austria and South Africa and how it couldbe leveraged to accelerate achievement of the global goals by:

• creating future-focused mixed-methods research on all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in four priority action areas within the Education for Sustainable Development Roadmap (ESD)
• supporting the development of scientific knowledge on Agenda 2030 in the education domain
• raising awareness about teacher educator professionalism in the context of the SDGs
• building international collaborative networks and strengthening existing networks to support sustainable development

This project was a follow-up to the Teach4Reach 1.0 project, which identified the need and relevance of further research and support related to teacher educator professionalism and the SDGs. Teacher educators are still a “hidden profession” , which, however, plays a major role in the development of the educational quality of pre- and in-service teachers. Their knowledge and competences are crucial to sustainable development in education and to support Agenda 2030.

The project undertook a number of collaborative activities to promote excellent research and evidence based awareness on teacher educator professionalism as it relates and contributes to the SDGs. The main focus was on collaborative research, joint supervision of doctoral students, as well as research outputs in the form of publications, conference papers and the development of an online workshop presented by the team at the end of the project.

The project partners were from the University of Innsbruck, the University of Pretoria and the University of Vienna. The researchers adopted a mixed-methods research approach with a sample of teacher educators from Austria (N = 200) and South Africa (N = 100). A combination of qualitative research (vignette research and semi-structured interviews) and quantitative research (questionnaire) was used to gain insights on the state of affairs in terms of teacher educator professionalism in the context of sustainability and the SDGs. As part of the quantitative part of the research, a tailor made data collection instrument - the Teacher Education and Sustainability Scale (TESS) was developed to capture key facets of Sustainable Development knowledge and practice enactment by participating teacher educators in Austria and South Africa. The TESS instrument is regarded as a novel contribution to the field by the project, providing an instrument which can be used to gauge the extent to which aspects of sustainability are well understood, embraced and practiced by teacher educators as they prepare future teachers. Key findings revealed small national contextual nuances, but more similarities than differences as well as the need for macro-level support and intervention. Limited knowledge of how to integrate the SDGs into teacher educator professional practice is counterproductive to the observed high receptivity to teach themes of sustainability. With multiple competencies elucidated as a requirement for SDG integration, professional learning in the form of microcredentialing emerged as one of the key recommendations by the project. A number of publications published in reputable international journals share the project achievements and contributions to the field of sustainable development, particularly in the field of teacher education and education, more broadly.