• Energy Research

The world, society and education are constantly evolving, and to respond to these changes, the main governmental institutions have been proposing different global strategies to focus efforts in the same direction. Currently, the United Nations and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have presented a series of indicators that could help to minimise the environmental, economic and social instability we are experiencing. In this sense, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been described as a fundamental factor. Specifically, in previous work, we argued that physical education (PE) could be a good tool to contribute to SDGs. Based on this, no research analysing the voices of Physical Education Teachers (PET) on how this contribution could be made has been identified in previous literature. Therefore, the objectives of this research are: (1) to analyse the voices and opinions of active PETs in terms of the knowledge they have about Sustainable Development (SD); (2) to determine their opinions about the contribution that PE could make to SDGs; and finally, (3) to identify the challenges and limitations of pedagogical action of SD in PE. For this purpose, a qualitative analysis through a semi-structured interview with 41 active PETs was carried out. The main findings will be presented and discussed around four themes: (a) agreement on the concept of sustainability; (b) PE can contribute to the achievement of SDGs; (c) ambiguity in applying SDGs to PE lessons; and (d) teachers’ constraints on how to implement SDGs in PE. It seems to indicate that PETs do not have a multidimensional vision of sustainable development. While they recognise the potential of PE to contribute to SDGs through awareness raising and student learning, they point to its pedagogical and formative constraints as the main barriers to being able to contribute. They pointed to a lack of knowledge on how to do so, guidelines on how to integrate ESD, lack of involvement, shortage of time or resources in school physical education.

Women’s empowerment is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 5, gender equality. However, little research has highlighted the contributions of sustainable female leadership in academic governance. In order to fill this gap, this study identifies and analyses the satisfactions, opportunities, and contributions of women academics to university governance and their perceptions of the potential impact of gender in this process. Forty-eight women leaders participated in the study. A purposive sampling technique was used because the research involved leaders who had held a management position in the university. The research methodology was qualitative, the instrument used for the collection of information was a semi-structured interview, and the analysis of the narratives was carried out with Aquad v. 7 software (Günter Huber, Tübingen, Alemania). The study revealed that the leadership style of the female academics is framed within the sustainable leadership approach. Beyond personal satisfactions, the main reward derived from the performance of the position lies in becoming transformative and catalysing agents of the institution, who try to find a balance between the economic and social interests of the organisation. The functions these female academics perform, within the framework of sustainable development, have a technical and, at the same time, humanised vision, as they focus on people and on personal and social values. Gender issues have not been a determinant in the satisfactions, opportunities, and contributions that the leaders make to the institution; however, participants emphasise that this was a strength for leadership.

Las instituciones de Educación Superior (IES) desempeñan un papel decisivo para resolver los problemas económicos, sociales y medioambientales que afectan a la humanidad. De ahí que el logro de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) constituya un reto para la academia. En este ámbito, el profesorado universitario tiene un rol determinante, ya que de sus conocimientos dependerá la conciencia y la cultura sostenible de los profesionales y líderes del futuro. En base a ello, este estudio se propuso identificar el nivel de conocimientos del profesorado universitario sobre los ODS y constatar las posibles diferencias existentes según el sexo y la facultad de procedencia. Para ello, se contó con la participación de 100 docentes de las Facultades de Educación y Ciencias de la Universidad de Alicante, quienes cumplimentaron un cuestionario sobre dicha temática. Se realizó un análisis descriptivo y comparativo con el programa estadístico SPSS v. 22. De acuerdo con los resultados, si bien el profesorado tenía una idea general sobre la sostenibilidad, sus conocimientos específicos eran limitados. Además, no se apreciaron diferencias significativas según el sexo y centro de adscripción. Se concluye que es necesario promover políticas universitarias para diseñar e implementar programas formativos específicos en materia de sostenibilidad.