Sustainable development: An emerging paradigm for secondary curriculu

This study was designed to ascertain the implications of the accelerating global ecocrisis for education. It focuses on the concept of sustainable development which permeates the 1987 report of the UN World Commission on Environment and Development. It presents a framework of fundamental concepts for the organization of secondary curricula in six areas: ecological, economic, social, political, cultural, and ethical.;To identify and define these concepts an analysis of core literature was made using Berelson's Categories of Content Analysis followed by an in-depth evaluation of global curricula in the United States, Canada, and Britain utilizing the Metfessel-Michael model, a variation of the Tylerian. Further analysis was carried out through a review of a survey of sustainable development in education conducted by Global Coalition for Tomorrow in 1990, applying the Jaeger Checklist for Survey Evaluation. A questionnaire submitted to select presenters at the regular UN briefings of Non-governmental Organizations and at conferences/seminars at various institutions through New York City over 1990-91 including Teachers College, Columbia University was also critiqued.;These concepts, directed to developers of curricula guidelines at the state/provincial level, call into question many of the tenets underlying Western Society, especially the economic system, national sovereignty and security, environmental norms, and treatment of developing countries. These concepts demand major shifts in curriculum orientation for secondary education.;The study suggests the need for a more holistic approach to curriculum development. In light of the interdisciplinary nature of the knowledge of the planetary ecological system now unfolding through sophisticated scientific research, fragmentation is no longer defensible. This is particularly true of science, where separation of the physical and life sciences still prevails. Neither can the division between these disciplines and the social sciences be perpetuated. The widely acknowledged connection between the ecology and the economy as pointed out in the study affirms the urgent need for promotion of ecological economics.;To effect these challenging changes, permanent liaison of educators with their governmental colleagues, universities, the UN, and Non-governmental Organizations will be obligatory.