Fostering Green skills and Climate Justice among teachers: a quali-quantitative investiga-tion into the paths proposed by Future Education Modena

With the aim of including sustainability education into education programmes, the New European Sustainability Competence Framework, known as GreenComp (Bianchi et al., 2022), constitutes an essential reference for students and a valuable resource for teachers, providing a clear definition of the necessary skills and outlining a meaningful path to develop an in-depth understanding of the principles of sustainability. The proposed contribution is based on qualitative research conducted as part of the three-year PON Green project (2022-2025), entitled “The ecological challenge: innovative educational practices”. The research examined the results gained by a sample of teachers involved in innovative training curricula proposed by FEM (Future Education Modena), an international center for innovation in the educational sector. These curricula focus on sustainability issues and are integrated into the School ReGeneration Plan. The aim of the research was to investigate teachers’ opinions regarding the green areas of competence and the possibility of integrating them into disciplinary paths (Cebrián & Junyent, 2015; Mulà et al., 2022; Marescotti, 2022). This contribution will highlight some results that emerged from the analysis of three focus groups and from the questionnaires administered before and after the training. In particular, we will focus on teachers’ representations regarding sustainability education in the classroom, highlighting the importance of their role and the practices adopted, as well as the definition of their values related to sustainable development and climate, ecological and social justice (Ilardo & Salinaro, 2023; Rowan et al., 2020; Borgerding et al., 2023). The analyzed data will provide interesting insights for the development of teacher training programs in sustainability education, carefully considering their interconnection with climate and social justice (Damiani, 2021; Corres et al., 2020). These programs aim to encourage the development of skills related to green issues (Birbes 2018; Ricciardi, 2021) supported by pedagogical principles that promote a democratic and inclusive school, thus contributing to the formation of global citizenship in the direction of real ecological justice (Lozano et al., 2017; Tarozzi & Mallon, 2019; Nigris & Zecca, 2023).