Taking into account the conceptual and methodological propositions in which the most common definitions of Geography are anchored, thus it seems uncontested the role that geographical education can play as regards the development of education for sustainability.The strategies that should frame the teaching and learning practices in both domains must be rooted in two basic principles: (1) they must bring together action, problem solving and decision-making processes; (2) they ought to reveal and explain the interaction between different kinds of phenomena.
As geographical education enlightens the relations between man and nature, so it also should allow students to recognize how indefinable or negligible the boundaries between curricula subjects are. Moreover, while it explains such relations by merging economic, social, cultural and political perspectives so it can lay the basis for a comprehensive approach to sustainability and assure the development of new kinds of values, attitudes and behaviours and lead to acollective identity paradigm on citizenship. In Portugal, the definition of essential competences for compulsory education (e.g. primary and lower secondary) was the outcome of a wide-ranging debate that took place between 1996 and 2001. The process of defining these competences involved teachers and researchers, educational associations and movements, the civil society in general. But the political shift that occurred in 2011 led to important changes as regards the national curriculum frame of reference, a process that affected the curriculum aims and educational value, more than its disciplinary structure. Given this context, the paper intends to address two main questions: a) in what way does the Portuguese national Geography curriculum promote the development of students′ literacy as regards sustainable development? b) How do the new national standards for lower secondary education issued in 2013 reveal a paradigm shift as regards the development of both geographical and sustainability education?
The paper will propose a rationale for the development of education for sustainability (ES) that will serve as a framework to analyse the meaning of ES that emerges from the content that is built-in the Portuguese Geography curriculum for compulsory education (ISCED 2, lower secondary education –7th, 8th and 9th grades). Such analysis will also be focused on the domain of science education, by way of the contents analysis of the existing syllabus for physical-natural sciences and Geography. It will then weigh against the content of both the curriculum revised in 2001 and of the national standards approved in 2013, in order to show how the later reinforces the rigidity of the curriculum thematic breakdown, thus inhibiting both the curriculum′s interdisciplinary management and a systemic approach to geographical as well as to sustainability issues. On the whole, the paper intends to demonstrate how the Geography curriculum that Portuguese schools are implementing at the national level is rooted in a piece meal approach that undermines the attempts to meaningfully interrelate human, natural, economic and social topics, thus weakening any teaching strategy designed to implement a sound approach to education for sustainability.
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