Page 120 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

9 Communicating Education for Sustainable Development 103

Furthermore, concepts of competence differ along basal directions. Schecker and
Parchmann (2003) propose distinguishing between descriptive and normative
models as well between competence structural models and competence develop-
ment models. In a competence structure model individually desirable components
are defined in relationship to a primary contentual goal. They give information
about the requirements necessary for learners to be able to cope with tasks and prob-
lems in a specific domain or requirement area. Competence development models go
beyond the structural models to the extent that, on the basis of such conditions as
learning environment and experience as well as a number of contentual require-
ments in a knowledge domain, they take individual components of a more complex
competence and order them in temporal or developmental hierarchy. Although there
are such implicit development models, e.g. in the form of curricula, it remains to be
investigated which cognitive requirements are necessary in order for declarative
knowledge to be transformed into procedural knowledge.
There are no concepts that include the development of sub-competences in terms of
2
Gestaltungskompetenz (de Haan 2006, de Haan et al. 2009) in ESD. In ESD compe-
tence structural models both these points can be identified. There are models that largely
concentrate on the cognitive dimensions of competences, for example, the model deve-
loped at the Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education with its compo-
nents of ‘understand/know-evaluate-act’ (Lauströer and Rost 2008). A further study
that is essentially oriented towards the knowledge component is the study ‘Green at
Fifteen?’ (OECD 2009). The concept of Gestaltungskompetenz is a holistic competence
concept (Wals 2010: 149) that also includes the social and affective dimensions.
The concept of Gestaltungskompetenz is a normative competence structural
model based on the OECD reference framework. It specifies the functions of ESD
and now includes 12 related sub-competences, which in turn can be classified in the
three primary competence categories of the OECD framework (Table 9.1).
The attention that competences have received for some time now shows an increas-
ing orientation to research findings into the output of learning and educational pro-
cesses. But the investigation into whether and to what degree the proposed
competences can be acquired is still at the beginning – and has proved to be quite
difficult. This is also due to the variety of different approaches used, e.g. descriptive
or normative; competence structural or developmental models. Especially for everyday
topics – and this is exactly what education for sustainable development is about – it is
a particular challenge to formulate empirically valid competence levels. For these
domains, according to Klieme (2004), “there may be no levels that can be clearly
demarcated and put on a scale from ‘low’ to ‘high’, but rather different patterns or

2 Gestaltungskompetenz describes the ability “to apply knowledge of sustainable development and
recognise problems of non-sustainable development. That means drawing consequences from
analyses of the present and future scenarios on environmental, economic and social developments
in their interdependence to take decisions and understand them before implementing them as indi-
viduals, in the community and politically in a way to promote sustainable development processes”
(Transfer 21a: 12).