Trends and perspectives in education for sustainable development in the teaching of geography in Spain

Abstract

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be known and assumed by the community of geography teachers in all levels of education as a key part of their educational work. In order for well-grounded SDGs-related geographic didactic proposals to be presented, and for researchers in didactics to find a way to incorporate and promote SDG-related contents in daily teaching, a thorough knowledge of the relevant geographical literature is mandatory. The aim of this work is to present the results of a review comprising 1183 papers submitted to the 22 congresses on the didactics of Geography organised by the Spanish Association of Geography working group in didactics from 1988 to 2019, as well as 186 works published in the only Spanish journal on the Didactics of Geography, Didáctica Geográfica. This analysis focuses on the contents addressed in these studies, as well as on the skills and didactic strategies related to the teaching of SDGs. It was found that most SDGs-related contributions in Spain deal with landscape and the environment. Regarding skills, it was concluded that much remains to be done concerning Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Finally, the current and future role of ESD in geographical teaching in Spain is assessed.