Education for Sustainable Development: Impact and Blind Spots within Different Routes in Austrian Teacher Education
Abstract
:1. Introduction
Research Purpose
- “Traditional” teacher education at institutions of higher education—this is the main route for the vast majority of teachers in Austria;
- Teacher education and training of upper secondary level “vocational education” (alternative route for vocational education with subject-dependent professional background);
- Lateral entry teachers without teaching degrees employed through special contracts.
2. Theoretical Background
2.1. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
2.2. History of Education for Sustainable Development in Austrian Teacher Education
2.3. Routes to Becoming a Teacher
- Teacher education route: Teacher education and training of secondary level “general education” of all subjects; the formal training track primarily covers the compulsory school sector after four years of primary school, which is compulsory for all Austrian pupils, and the higher secondary level of general education (“new” secondary schools/middle schools, polytechnic schools/pre-vocational schools, and high schools/grammar schools).
- Vocational education route: Teacher education and training of upper secondary level “vocational education”; the unrelated formal training track enables practitioners from different subject areas (with professional experience) to acquire pedagogical postgraduate training for the higher secondary level in vocational education (upper secondary federal institutes of technology, agricultural and forestry schools, and upper secondary business schools) after completing a basic degree (master’s level).
- Practice route: Lateral entry teachers who, due to the shortage of teachers without teaching degrees, are employed on special contracts at selected, mostly socioeconomically disadvantaged school locations (secondary schools/middle schools and polytechnic schools/pre-vocational schools that receive too few applications from certified teachers).
3. Materials and Methods
3.1. Sample
- Traditional institutions for teacher education to cover the teacher education route (with all 26 institutions located in Austria included in the sampling frame; n = 180);
- A college that offers a teaching license for completing vocational training in agricultural and environmental education that allows teachers to enter the profession next to those who followed the traditional curricula of teacher education (n = 79). The University College of Agricultural and Environmental Education (UCAEP) was deliberately chosen for the vocational education sample because the origin of today’s sustainability discussion and understanding is justly derived from the field of agriculture and forestry [27]. This sample was used to inform the vocational education route;
- Teach for Austria, an organization that is part of the Teach for All network, which allows individuals to enter the profession without formal pedagogical education (n = 106). Teach For Austria was added to the sample because the organization represents the largest private–public collaboration for the Austrian practice route in teacher education and training. This sample was used mainly to provide information about the practice route, but it also provided data for the second group—the commonality being that participants in both groups have studied a bachelor’s and/or master’s degree other than a traditional teacher education curriculum.
- a curriculum of teacher education (teacher education route, n = 231),
- any other higher education curriculum (vocational education route, n = 134),
- or teaching practice (practice route, n = 106).
3.2. Instruments
3.3. Analysis
4. Results
4.1. No Difference between Groups
4.2. Primarily in Vocational Education Route
4.3. Primarily in Practice Route
4.4. Primarily in Teacher Education Route
5. Discussion
5.1. Primarily in Practice Route
5.2. Primarily in Vocational Education Route
5.3. No Difference between Groups
5.4. Limitations and Implications for Research
5.5. Implications for Practice
5.6. International Positioning
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
- …your study program or non-teaching work experience? (Practice route, vocational ed route)
- …your induction phase? (Practice route)?
- …your teacher education programme? (Traditional route)?
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Hobusch, U.; Froehlich, D.E. Education for Sustainable Development: Impact and Blind Spots within Different Routes in Austrian Teacher Education. Sustainability 2021, 13, 11585. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111585
Hobusch U, Froehlich DE. Education for Sustainable Development: Impact and Blind Spots within Different Routes in Austrian Teacher Education. Sustainability. 2021; 13(21):11585. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111585
Chicago/Turabian StyleHobusch, Ulrich, and Dominik Emanuel Froehlich. 2021. "Education for Sustainable Development: Impact and Blind Spots within Different Routes in Austrian Teacher Education" Sustainability 13, no. 21: 11585. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111585