Nuances in the embedment of ESDCG in the Azorean curriculum

Este capítulo tem origem na conferência «A Child's World - Working Together for a Better Future», que decorreu em Aberystwyth (Wales) entre 27 e 29 de Junho de 2012.

This chapter focuses on the embedment of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC) in the Regional Curriculum for Basic Education that has recently emerged in the Azores, Portugal. It starts with a brief focus on the assertion of a curriculum policy in the Azores and on international trends with regard to the embedment of ESDCG in official curricula. Then it reports findings from an analysis of the main official document through which that same curriculum is conveyed. The fact that Sustainable Development and Azoreaness are considered the transversal themes of the regional curriculum prompted the adoption of a two-fold frame of analysis. The relationship between the first transversal theme of the curriculum and the focus of this chapter is obvious. Accordingly, the above-mentioned document was thoroughly scrutinised with a view to identifying different kinds of approach to Sustainable Development. But the theme Azoreaness (i.e. the condition of being Azorean and the specific traits of the Azorean culture) suggests a regional focus, rather than an emphasis on Global Citizenship. Therefore, another part of the analysis was directed towards the identification of different kinds of relationship between the local and the global. It was found that some curricular areas tend to approach Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) directly, whereas other areas tend to consider it indirectly, as a secondary issue. It was also found that the most frequent way of relating the local to the global consists of regarding given aspects of the local reality as manifestations of wider phenomena.