In recent years, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has become increasingly important internationally as well as in in the German educational landscape. As a consequence of that, and linked to the general trend of standardization and measurability in (educational) policy (Biesta 2010), the importance of monitoring and evaluation processes on ESD increased. The progress of ESD-implementation has been analyzed on the international level (Tilbury 2007) and (sometimes regarding subdomains of ESD) on national levels (Olsson et al. 2015, Boeve-de Pauw 2015).
Concerning the ESD-upscaling in Germany, recent commitments can be seen on several accounts: e.g. in the setup of a comprehensive multi-stakeholder, ministry-led structure of the UNESCO-GAP -implementation on ESD and the development and effectuation of a National Action Plan on ESD (Nationale Plattform Bildung für Nachhaltige Entwicklung c/o Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung 2017). While there is some data concerning the ESD-uptake in the German educational system (Michelsen et al. 2015), a comprehensive and systematic monitoring process to more precisely grasp the extent and quality of ESD (also in different educational areas) has, however, not been undertaken yet. Data from such monitoring processes can thereby be crucial catalysts for fostering ESD-implementation: In times of evidence-based policy-making (Carney, Oliver 2017) and internationalization of (also educational) policies, measuring a baseline of ESD implementation and identifying reasons for lacks of implementation is a precondition for setting ambitious national aims and developing effective strategies for a further upscaling of ESD.
In order to establish such a baseline and analyze reasons for ESD-deficits in Germany, a quantitative study has been designed in the context of a complex monitoring process in Germany. The research project is in the province of the department of the scientific advisor of the GAP-ESD and comprises four phases: a first desk research, a qualitative study, the quantitative study (an online access panel study) discussed here in more detail and a second desk research phase.
The four phases as a whole and the quantitative study presented here in particular thereby directly contribute to measuring the national extent and quality of different SDGs (UN 2018) and their targets: 4.7 (“all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development”), 13.3 (improve, among others, education on climate change education) as well as 12.8 (ensuring the “information and awareness for sustainable development”).