IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i7p4333-d787718.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Reception of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in China: A Historical Review

Author

Listed:
  • Ronghui (Kevin) Zhou

    (Department of Education Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK)

  • Nick Lee

    (Department of Education Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK)

Abstract

This article reveals the changes that have taken place in the under-researched Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) discourse in China over the past three decades and presents new findings. The authors conducted discourse analysis to examine the changes of ESD discourse in official policy documents and compared them with the concept of ESD as it appears in the UNESCO framework. Findings suggest that ESD in China has been redefined by domestic discourse and interests. The concept of ‘Ecological Civilisation’ replaces the identity and function of ESD as it appears in China’s education policies, while ESD primarily targets the environmental sector. This redefining of ESD weakens the interconnection between ESD and sustainable development (SD) that exists within the UNESCO framework and presents an unstable approach to ESD in China. This research contributes to ESD development in China and updates its potential education challenges considering China’s 2030 Agenda.

Suggested Citation

  • Ronghui (Kevin) Zhou & Nick Lee, 2022. "The Reception of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in China: A Historical Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:7:p:4333-:d:787718
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/7/4333/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/7/4333/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Don N. Ike, 1984. "The System of Land Rights in Nigerian Agriculture," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 469-480, October.
    2. Yao, Huizong & Zang, Chuanfu, 2021. "The spatiotemporal characteristics of electrical energy supply-demand and the green economy outlook of Guangdong Province, China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wenxin Wang & Xia Yang & Xia Gan & Chang Yang & Xiangwen Gong & Si Chen, 2023. "The Differences in the Impact of Economic Structure Adjustment on the Ecological Carrying Capacity of County Education—A Case Study of Chongqing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Pilar Aparicio-Martínez & María Pilar Martinez-Jimenez & Alberto-Jesús Perea-Moreno, 2022. "Health Environment and Sustainable Development," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-5, July.
    3. Jian Li & Eryong Xue, 2022. "Unpacking the Policies, Historical Stages, and Themes of the Education Equality for Educational Sustainable Development: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-15, August.
    4. Qianyi Li & Md Qamruzzaman, 2023. "Innovation-Led Environmental Sustainability in Vietnam—Towards a Green Future," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-34, August.
    5. Yuzhuo Cai & Lili-Ann Wolff, 2022. "Education and Sustainable Development Goals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-5, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liu, Jiang & Wu, Qifeng & Lin, Zhipeng & Shi, Huijie & Wen, Shaoyang & Wu, Qiaoyu & Zhang, Junxue & Peng, Changhai, 2023. "A novel approach for assessing rooftop-and-facade solar photovoltaic potential in rural areas using three-dimensional (3D) building models constructed with GIS," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    2. Aderemi, Taiwo A., 2021. "Nutritional deficiency and women’s empowerment in agriculture: Evidence from Nigeria," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 16(4), December.
    3. Tom Kuhlman & John Farrington, 2010. "What is Sustainability?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(11), pages 1-13, November.
    4. Oladehinde, Gbenga John & Olayiwola, Lasun Mykail & Popoola, Kehinde Olayinka, 2024. "Security of land tenure: A comparative analysis among sub-ethnic groups in rural communities of Oyo State, Nigeria," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    5. Austine Ng'ombe & Ramin Keivani & Michael Mattingly & Michael Stubbs, 2014. "Impacts of Privatization of Customary Land Rights in Zambia: A Comparative Study of Rural and Peri-urban Locations," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(6), pages 1985-2007, November.
    6. Xue, Yan & Hu, Dongmei & Irfan, Muhammad & Wu, Haitao & Hao, Yu, 2023. "Natural resources policy making through finance? The role of green finance on energy resources poverty," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    7. Wang, Bingqing & Li, Yongping & Huang, Guohe & Gao, Pangpang & Liu, Jing & Wen, Yizhuo, 2023. "Development of an integrated BLSVM-MFA method for analyzing renewable power-generation potential under climate change: A case study of Xiamen," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 337(C).
    8. Tang, Xinmeng & Zhou, Xiaoguang, 2023. "Impact of green finance on renewable energy development: A spatiotemporal consistency perspective," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 320-337.
    9. Xu, Renjing & Xu, Bin, 2022. "Exploring the effective way of reducing carbon intensity in the heavy industry using a semiparametric econometric approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:7:p:4333-:d:787718. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.