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In this paper, we report on an investigation into initial teacher education students’ (ITES) understandings of sustainability and the Australian National Curriculum Sustainability Cross Curricular Priority (CCP). We also explore their willingness and capacities to embed the CCP into their own teaching practices. The ITES (N=392) completed a quantitative survey with a series of Likert Scale questions and were asked to list "5 words" when they think of sustainability. Analysis reveals that ITES have generally limited to moderate understandings of sustainability and education for sustainability, but lesser understandings of the Sustainability CCP and the 9 organising ideas. Understandings of sustainability were dominated by an environmental focus. We conclude this paper with a discussion of the implications of narrow environmental understandings of sustainability. We explore factors that limit and enable teacher educators to embed sustainability education more explicitly. We note the importance role teacher educators play in supporting ITES to better understand sustainability

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Sustainability Education, Teacher Education,
Research Division:	Education
Research Group:	Education systems
Research Field:	Teacher education and professional development of educators
Objective Division:	Education and Training
Objective Group:	Teaching and curriculum
Objective Field:	Teacher and instructor development
UTAS Author:	Dyment, JE (Associate Professor Janet Dyment)
UTAS Author:	Hill, AM (Dr Allen Hill)
ID Code:	99145
Year Published:	2015
Web of Science® Times Cited:	12
Deposited By:	Education
Deposited On:	2015-03-16
Last Modified:	2017-11-19
Downloads:	466 View Download Statistics