Teachers globally in mind: New book on sustainable education appeared!

Teachers globally in mind: New book on sustainable education appeared!

Potsdam, Deutschland - On June 11, 2025, the book “The influence of the border and the limit of influence: Educating Teachers for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship: Internationalizing Teacher Education in the Context of the Un Sustainable Development Goals” was published. Published by Prof. Dr. Britta Freitag-Hild, Stefanie Goertz, Prof. Dr. Isolde Malmberg and Prof. Dr. Linda P. Juang, it shows the efforts to train future teachers in the context of the goals for the sustainable development of the United Nations (SDGS). The publication takes place in the Open Access format by daad-projekt "Up Network for Sustainable Education" (2021-2024). The editors emphasize the variety of ideas and inspiration caused by interdisciplinary collaboration from various fields such as language, natural, social, educational sciences and didactics.

international cooperation and challenges

The creation of the book is the result of intensive cooperation between scientists: inside from over ten partner universities and institutions. In addition, contributions from the international Summer School "Teaching the SDGS" (2022) at the University of Potsdam flowed into the publication. Not only the opportunities of internationalization were in the foreground, but also the challenges such as the familiarization of corrections and specific format requirements.

The target group of the book includes teachers, students and experts who are committed to the internationalization of the formation of teaching. The positive feedback on the book illustrates the interest in intercultural teaching methods, which in turn match the objective of the DAAD. In the first funding phase of the project, the DAAD promoted a variety of initiatives to internationalize the teaching degree. These comprised 36 model projects and cooperation with 220 partner universities in 55 countries, which also contributes to increasing the global mobility of teacher students.

Education for sustainable development

In the context of education for sustainable development (BNE), the Cultural Ministers' Conference is of central importance. The term BNE was shaped in 1992 at the UN Conference for the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro and demands that the needs of today's generations are met without endangering the possibilities of future generations. The focus here is on access, equality of opportunities and inclusion in education.

The Agenda 2030 and the adoption of the 17 global sustainability goals promote a double strategy: Education integration of sustainable development and education as a key to realizing these goals. In order to support these ambitions, an independent recommendation of the Conference of Ministers of Education for "Education for Sustainable Development in School" for 2024 is expected, which deals with the structural anchorage of ESN in the German educational landscape.

In summary, the book illustrates a decisive step in the formation of the teacher - through internationalization and BNE, prospective teachers are to be optimally prepared for the challenges of a globalized and changing world.