Promoting the UN sustainable development goals in teaching, research and democratic urban life: Approaches to lifelong education for sustainable development
The present paper looks into the field of Education for Sustainable Development by showing how sustainability-oriented topics can be integrated into foreign language teaching at school, into academic education and research in the field of business economics as well as into democratic city life in Germany. By focusing on these three different areas, it will be illustrated that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be easily addressed and even targeted. Moreover, it may become obvious that a wide range of skills can be promoted within the frame of shaping an overall culture of sustainability. In this way, people from different social and cultural backgrounds can develop a critical awareness for a sustainable society. Learning and building knowledge is clearly defined as an ongoing and even lifelong, continuous process. By presenting different approaches and projects that foster Education for Sustainable Development, the author argues that a comprehensive approach consisting of different disciplines and/or thematic areas is imperative in order to find solutions to global challenges.
KEYWORDS: sustainability, UN, SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals, lifelong learning, education for sustainable development, gender, democracy