Education for Sustainable Development in Perspective(s) : Rural Mongolian teachers’ views on environmental problems

Abstract: Many researchers argue that there is a demand for a new way of teaching and learning to better equip us for the value pluralistic society we are living in. Research has shown that teachers are reluctant to teach about value pluralistic subjects. This thesis aims to study how rural Mongolian teachers view the human-nature relationship in relation to the current situation in Mongolia, characterized by economic growth and environmental issues. Ethical perspectives are applied on the teachers’ views in order to bring structure to the different ways of viewing the human-nature relationship. The study shows that the teachers’ values change depending on if they look at their personal relationship to nature or put nature in relation to society. The results prove that even though personal values are complex it is possible to bring structure to how we understand them. The result provides an example of how complex value pluralistic issues can be structured in order to enable an understanding of them. Furthermore, the thesis suggests that ethical perspectives can be used in education for sustainable development when striving for a new way of teaching and learning.