ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1662244
Spanish teachers' perceptions of motivations, opportunities, and barriers regarding Education for Sustainable Development: an exploratory study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
- 2Universidad de los Andes, Las Condes, Chile
- 3Independent research, Barcelona, Spain
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This pilot study explores teachers' perceptions of motivations, opportunities, and barriers associated with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at different levels of education. Using a quantitative approach, a validated self-completion online questionnaire was distributed to a non-probability sample of 150 teachers in Spain. They all had prior experience in ESD, and voluntarily agreed to participate. The results reveal that the most significant motivations are transcendent, especially the desire to contribute to the common good. Institutional cooperation and integrating sustainability into strategic planning of institutions emerge as key factors amongst the opportunities. However, relevant barriers, such as consumerism and the need for specialised training in ESD, are identified. Strong positive correlations between intrinsic and transcendent motivations and opportunities for ESD are observed. This suggests the importance of strengthening these factors to promote sustainable behaviours in educational settings. This study, one of the few quantitative investigations that captures the perceptions of ESD teachers across all educational levels, provides a solid basis for guiding future teacher education and public policy actions in the field of sustainability in education.
Keywords: SDG4: EDS, SDG4: Quality Education, SDG13: Climate action, motivations, opportunities, barriers
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 15 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Vergara-Arteaga, Albareda-Tiana, Graell-Martín and Fuentes-Loss. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Marcela Vergara-Arteaga, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
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