Making Sense of Social Sustainability: Analysis of Preservice Teachers’ Discussions About Sustainability Challenges in Texas (Poster 5)

• In Event: Possibilities in Practice: Environmental and Sustainability Learning Across Contexts

Abstract

This study explores how preservice teachers understand “social sustainability” through discussing a local controversy about whether a film studio should be built in San Marcos on part of the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone in Texas. Five themes were generated: social wellbeing, human wellbeing, equity, democratic government and civil society, and demographic and economic change. Our results show that these themes are highly contextualized. We argue that every sustainability case should take the social dimensions into consideration, not just focusing on the tensions of economics and the environment. These themes are also frequently discussed in social studies classrooms. Social studies teachers are thus in a great position to guide students to explore social sustainability, and its interactions with economic and environmental sustainability.

Authors

• Yun Wen Chan, Texas State University

• Michelle Forsythe, Texas State University