Education for Sustainable Development as Part of the Initial Training of Teachers in the UK

The theme of sustainability has become one of increasing importance within the initial training of teachers in many countries around the world. However, despite the promotion of this area by bodies such as UNESCO, the extent to which sustainability has become embedded within courses and programs has been heavily influenced by national education priorities. Summarizing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) integration in international policies and research, this chapter reviews both the opportunities for and constraints to promoting sustainability within the example university’s teacher training courses. It further summarizes the strategies that the university develops to address the challenges of bringing sustainability themes to a range of courses. A feature of the chapter is an assessment of the extent to which sustainability is seen as merely an inclusion in course content, an inter-disciplinary approach, or a distinctive pedagogical approach related to transformative learning and social change. The chapter concludes by reflecting on what this evidence tells us about the challenges to including sustainability themes within programs and indicates what can be done to promote sustainability themes within teacher education more broadly.