Time and sustainability: A missing link in formal education curricula

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Authors

Time is an essential dimension of sustainability and its premise of intra- and intergenerational justice. Moreover, prevailing sociocultural practices of time use are drivers of unsustainability. Educational institutions convey social norms on time and are thus places where time is "learned." It is therefore of relevance for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to understand how exactly time is addressed in education. This study from Germany introduces the concept of time as a resource for sustainability before presenting an analysis of how time in this sense is addressed in 2,149 German curricula, covering all grades and school forms. Our study shows that, overall, an engagement with time as a resource for sustainability is rare in formal education. Time is mostly addressed in ethical reflections on lifetime or in teaching time management skills. We discuss implications of our findings and sketch avenues for future research on time as a resource for sustainability.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Environmental Education
Volume53
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)22-41
Number of pages20
ISSN0095-8964
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29.03.2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Research and writing were conducted as part of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)?funded project Time Rebound, Time Affluence and Sustainable Consumption (ReZeitKon), funded by the BMBF under grant number 01UT1708C. We would like to thank our student assistant Celine Ebeloe for her support with data analysis and the editing of the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.