Early Childhood Preservice Teachers’ View of Socio-Environmental Problems and Its Relationship to the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

In the face of the socio-environmental crisis in which we are immersed, the initial training of teachers must assume the work in favor of a critical, committed, participatory citizenry capable of responding to the socio-environmental problems of the current and future world. The analysis of the initial 61 research projects on socio-environmental problems of four classes involving 240 students of the Degree in Early Childhood Education at the University of Seville (Seville, Spain) is presented. Under an interpretive descriptive approach according to a category system based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the UN (2015) and its targets, we can learn about their socio-environmental concerns and how they relate to the current 2030 Agenda. We obtain that of the 17 SDGs, around half of the final 42 research projects analyzed focus on sustainable consumption and project patterns and climate change, while problems related to poverty, hunger, or peace do not arise. In addition to allowing us to draw a portrait of the socio-environmental concerns of early childhood preservice teachers, the data obtained also gave us the opportunity to ponder the didactic possibilities that these types of formative activities bring to the training of teachers who are critical and committed to transforming the world.