“Green Citizenship in Latin America: A Curricular Mapping Approach”

• In Event: "Navigating the Complexities of Environmental and Sustainability Education: Contradictions, Overlaps, and the Role of Data"

Proposal

The complexity and urgency of the climate crisis requires a profound revisitation of our social contract through education (UNESCO, 2022), as a pathway to effectively ensure a sustainable future. To achieve this, education systems must take responsibility for shaping citizens committed to Green Citizenship (GC) in three key dimensions: knowledge, values, and behaviors (Bos & Schwartz, 2023, p. 16). This means that is not enough to convey information on environmental issues; it is also necessary to instill values that promote respect for the environment and foster responsible and sustainable behaviors in future generations.
Previous studies indicate that education systems have high potential to address the challenges of climate change (Mochizuki and Bryan, 2015). Education can be one of the central drivers in the international response to environmental problems in all their complexity. Kwauk and Casey (2021) highlight the need to implement a variety of approaches and strategies to build better capacities for climate action.
Thus, this study analyzed the inclusion of GC in the policies and curricula of 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, aiming at informing the IDB’s recommendations on how to enhance climate change education.
The first chapter maps educational policies that promote GC by means of a comprehensive review of websites, previous regional studies, and networks such as the MECCE Project, UNESCO's ESD Network, and the Ibero-American Network for Educational Innovation and Research. Interviews were conducted with curriculum experts from each country to explore the curricular context and education policies of the last decade related to GC, and ten experts on climate change education in the region were consulted. From these sources, twenty relevant policies and programs promoting GC were selected, analyzing the actors involved, their duration, and implementation strategies. The second chapter of the study conducted a thorough curricular mapping, aimed at: (a) identifying the current national curricular documents for primary and secondary education across all subjects; (b) contextualizing these documents within the curricular governance systems of each country; (c) mapping the content related to GC in official curricula by early 2024. Additionally, a list of 132 key terms associated with GC was developed. The findings were analyzed to provide a comprehensive view of the relevance of GC in the context of curricular governance, highlighting its regional particularities and presented in individual country profiles. The third chapter analyzed three countries in Latin America and three countries outside the region that have successfully implemented education for GC in their education policies and curricula. Based on consultations with regional and international experts, the cases of Colombia, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic were selected. Outside the region, the cases of Indonesia, Sweden, and Manitoba, Canada, are highlighted.
Finally, the conclusions include a series of recommendations aimed at highlighting opportunities to enhance the inclusion of GC in the countries of the region: it is necessary to develop education systems that prioritize the relevance of GC without homogenizing regional identities, recognizing diversity as a strength to address environmental challenges and promote sustainable and resilient development in Latin America.

Authors

• Ezequiel Gomez Caride, Universidad De San Andrés

• Carla Andrea Sabbatini, Universidad De San Andrés