Teaching 3-5-year olds socio-emotional competence to support UNESCO Sustainability goals.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) in 2015 followed by the Education for Sustainable Development goals: Learning Objectives (ESDGLO’s) in 2017 outlining learning objectives and key competencies for achievement by 2030. These contain specific socio-emotional objectives. This research examines how early childhood education (ECE) teachers, with a knowledge of environmental education, promote socio-emotional competency in children that could potentially foster the ESDGLO’s.

A collective interpretive case study was used to address the research question. In the first phase an online questionnaire was filled out by 20 early childhood teachers from four different centres, asking them to describe a socio-emotional competent child and the teaching strategies they viewed as important to support socio-emotional development. These are analysed using generic inductive analysis to arrive at major themes. Phase two entailed reviewing related centre documentation from these centres, and an analysis of the ESDGLO’s to distil the socio-emotional competencies most frequently mentioned. The final phase involved semi-structured interviews with 12 participants from 3 centres to clarify their ideas and meanings.

The results showed very little understanding of either the SDG’s or ESDGLO’s by participants. However, the major themes, from the participants’ views on important socio-emotional competencies and those from the ESDGLO’s were comparable except in one area. The major teaching strategies seemed to potentially foster the other major socio-emotional competencies of the ESDGLO’s.

This study shows the need for further teacher education and professional development around the SDG’s and related frameworks for implementation including their relationship to indigenous paradigms. Also, further research and resource development is needed to support ECE teachers with the integration of the ESDGLO’s into their pedagogy.