Sustainable Development Goals and education for sustainability: analysis of the sustainability concepts of Administration students in a public higher education institution

Abstract

This research aimed to identify, through the analysis of the sustainability conceptions of the students of the UFPB Business Administration course, ways to incorporate sustainability into their education. In terms of methodology, this paper carried out a phenomenographic research. This choice was based on the fact that phenomenography is an approach whose goal is to empirically investigate how people experience, understand and give meaning to a phenomenon in the world around them. Its application at the UFPB took into account the relevance of studying education for sustainability in a university campus inserted in an Atlantic Forest environment. Three concepts of sustainability were identified: opportunity, resources e sense of community, from the most superficial to deepest, respectively. The survey revealed that most of the students interviewed conceive sustainability in terms of resources. It was not possible to identify a deepening that could indicate it to be a result from these students’ formation process. Five directions were appointed by students for incorporating sustainability in administrator formation: the creation of a specific discipline focused on sustainability; the approach to sustainability in an interdisciplinary manner; practice as a contribution to the theory; promoting the scientific research projects that address on this theme; and conducting institutional awareness campaigns on sustainability.