Integrating sustainability into Business Education teacher training

• Main Author: Carina America
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Education Association of South Africa 2014-03-01
• Series: South African Journal of Education
• Subjects: business education; curriculum design; curriculum development; business economics education; education for sustainability; environmental education; sustainability; sustainable development; teacher education; teacher training
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0256-01002014000300014&lng=en&tlng=en

Businesses are increasingly coming under scrutiny from stakeholders who expect them to report how they protect the environment, how they guarantee no human and labour violations in their value chain, and how they function on ethical business principles. Businesses are trying to adjust to these changing environments for the betterment of society and the planet while still concentrating on profit. The same awareness and inquiry would be expected from business education student teachers who teach business principles and business operations. This study, which was conducted at three universities, describes the perspectives and sustainability virtues of pre-service business education teachers who attended a workshop aimed at integrating sustainability in their teacher training curriculum. A qualitative framework was adopted using three methods: focus-group discussions, reflection based on a video recording and a critical analysis of the curriculum. Findings suggest that incremental shifts in critical self-awareness of business education pre-service teachers occurred. A business education and education for sustainability synthesis is recommended and provided as a conceptual framework in this study. This synthesis can be a useful place to start to elicit critical self-awareness when pre-service teachers have to deal with the complex mix of the five types of learning, namely disciplinary, situational, practical, fundamental and pedagogical learning.