Education for Sustainable Development in Japan: Student Competencies and Teacher Practices Based on a Survey in Yokohama City

• In Event: Constructing Citizenship through Education: Textbooks, Competencies, and Democratic Practices Across Contexts

Proposal

This presentation examines the development of competencies within the framework of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Japan, focusing on both students’ competencies and teachers’ practices. ESD, which has been internationally promoted since the early 2000s, aims to cultivate learners as active contributors to a sustainable society by enabling them to perceive global issues as their own and to act both locally and globally. In Japan, this concept has been integrated into national educational policy, particularly in the 2017 revision of the Course of Study, which positions students as “builders of a sustainable society” and emphasizes the acquisition of transversal competencies through deep, proactive, and dialogue-based learning.

The study presented in this presentation investigates the implementation of ESD in Yokohama City, one of Japan’s most active municipalities in advancing ESD and designated as an SDGs Future City. Specifically, the research is based on a questionnaire survey conducted between October and November 2020 with 2,365 students (fifth graders and middle schoolers) and 378 teachers in 21 elementary and middle schools designated as ESD promoter schools. The survey aimed to clarify students’ and teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding ESD, and to analyze the relationships between students’ competencies and teachers’ practices.

Findings regarding students’ competencies indicate that learners generally value equality and diversity, actively engage in environmental protection, and demonstrate openness toward diverse perspectives. However, while they display awareness of social inequalities, they lack a comprehensive understanding of the interconnections among environment, economy, and society, as well as the linkages to their own behaviors. Furthermore, students actively participate in school-based environmental initiatives, yet tend to be passive in classroom discussions on global themes. These results suggest both strengths and limitations in students’ current ESD competencies.

Analysis by school level reveals differences between elementary and middle schools. Elementary schools tend to emphasize locally grounded, familiar themes and promote experiential and community-based learning. In contrast, middle schools more frequently address abstract topics such as peace, human rights, poverty, and inequality, and they integrate ESD more strongly into humanities and social science subjects compared to mathematics and science. This divergence suggests that both developmental stages of learners and disciplinary orientations of teachers shape ESD implementation.

The findings also highlight notable correlations between teachers’ practices and student competencies. Factor analysis identified “ESD/SDGs-related initiatives” as a key component of teacher practice, which showed positive correlations with students’ knowledge and behaviors, particularly in elementary schools. Teacher collaboration with local communities and school-level initiatives that connect global themes to local contexts also demonstrated positive effects on students’ attitudes and behaviors. These results underscore the value of experiential and community-based ESD approaches that link abstract sustainability challenges with students’ daily lives.

At the same time, the survey indicates that teacher practices focusing on transversal abilities and the transmission of knowledge about global themes did not show significant correlations with students’ competencies. This may reflect both the difficulty students face in grasping complex global issues and the limitations of current teaching strategies. Students’ self-reported lack of knowledge may also reflect an increased awareness of complexity as their learning deepens, highlighting the need for further research into how competencies are actually acquired and demonstrated.

Regarding teacher training, the results suggest a paradoxical pattern: the more training teachers attended, the more they tended to feel insufficient in their knowledge of ESD, even while reporting greater confidence in their teaching methods. This may reflect a cultural tendency among Japanese teachers to become more aware of their limitations as they deepen their learning. Nonetheless, the results suggest that training can stimulate teachers’ motivation to learn and adopt new pedagogical methods. Future training should thus shift from topic-based sessions to more systematically structured programs that clearly outline the overall competencies required for ESD practice.

The survey also identifies significant challenges for teachers. While they report success in fostering dialogue, respect for diversity, and the development of transversal competencies, they also note difficulties in addressing global themes such as poverty, inequality, conflict, and human rights, which feel distant from everyday classroom contexts. Teachers struggle particularly with presenting conflicting values (e.g., competition versus solidarity, consumption versus frugality) and with articulating the interconnections across environmental, economic, and social dimensions. These findings indicate the need to strengthen teachers’ ability to design cross-curricular, integrative learning experiences that address both local and global sustainability challenges.

The presentation concludes that while ESD practices in Yokohama schools have achieved meaningful progress—particularly in connecting sustainability themes to students’ immediate lives and fostering positive attitudes and behaviors—essential gaps remain. Students’ understanding of global interconnections is limited, and teachers face difficulties in systematically integrating abstract sustainability themes into their lessons. Addressing these challenges will require both the expansion of cross-curricular learning opportunities and the development of supplementary teaching materials that allow students to pursue independent study without adding to teachers’ already heavy workloads. In this way, ESD can continue to advance in Japan by striking a balance between cultivating global perspectives and the practical realities of classroom practice.

Overall, the findings from Yokohama provide significant insights into the strengths and limitations of current ESD initiatives in Japan. They highlight the promise of experiential, locally grounded approaches while underscoring the need to broaden perspectives to encompass distant global challenges. The study demonstrates that nurturing ESD competencies requires both structural support, such as curriculum design and community partnerships, and sustained efforts to support teachers in developing effective pedagogical strategies. As Japan continues to promote ESD as a national priority, these lessons from Yokohama offer valuable guidance for further strengthening the role of education in building a sustainable society.

Author

• Yuto Kitamura, The University of Tokyo