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Center for a Sustainable University
Centerfor a Sustainable University

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SDG 4: Quality Education

SDG 4 calls on us to ensure inclusive, equitable, and quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all. Education is a key indicator for sustainable development and enables individuals to improve their political, social, cultural, and economic situation.

Sponsorship team

Prof. Dr. Jetta Frost

Vice president of Universität Hamburg

Faculty: Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Department(s): Socioeconomics, Business Administration
Profile: Prof. Dr. Jetta Frost

Prof. Dr. Lydia Mechtenberg

Faculty: Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Department(s): Economics
Profile: Prof. Dr. Dr. Lydia Mechtenberg

What are your research areas? What research projects are you currently working on? How do these relate to “your” SDG?

  • Political economy, in particular the topic of democratic institutions. Connection to SDG 4 (Quality Education): research on the importance of schools in democratic education plays an important role in DEMOS, the EU consortium on populism in which I am involved.
  • Organizational economics. Connection to the SDG 4 (Quality Education): I study (1) gender differences in response to feedback from teachers and other authorities in the education process and (2) peer effects in the education process (i.e., the question of how a group’s (talent) composition influences the learning behavior of the individuals belonging to that group).

How and why did you become interested in this topic?

Quality education is the gateway to participation in a democratic society and market-based economy. At the same time, participation in quality education is subject to democratic and market economy requirements and processes. This creates an important and interesting field of tension for research.

What activities are you planning as part of the SDG sponsorship? What possibilities do you see in (interdisciplinary) networking with other members of your sponsorship team?

This will soon become clearer. First, we need to meet and discuss everything in detail.

Is your topic related to any of the 16 other SDGs?

Yes, it is related to SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).

Prof. Dr. Silke Schreiber-Barsch

Faculty: Educational Science
Department(s): Professional Education and Life-Long Learning (EW 3)
Profile: Prof. Dr. Silke Schreiber-Barsch

What are your research areas? What research projects are you currently working on? How do these relate to “your” SDG?

About Prof. Dr. Schreiber-Barsch, work at Universität Hamburg, non-university SDG sponsorship activities:

  • Since October 2013: Junior Professor for Adult and Further Education within the Faculty of Education; in this context, Associate Junior Professor at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (Hamburg)
  • Since May 2017: appointed to the working group on Education for Sustainable Development at universities of the Hamburg Ministry of Science, Research and Equalities (BWFG) as a representative of Universität Hamburg within the association of higher education institutions in Hamburg
  • Since July 2015: appointed as a member of the Expert Advisory Board of the national monitoring committee ERASMUS+ within the National Agency Education for Europe at the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BiBB) in Bonn as a representative for adult and further education

Research areas:

(1) Participation and inclusion/exclusion

(2) Life-long learning in theory and practice

Starting with these two initial research areas, I divide my study and research on SDG 4 into 3 sub-categories:

  1. Contents: what knowledge and which skills and values are of lasting individual, collective, and social importance?
  2. Processes: how can a life-wide and life-long ability and willingness to learn be lastingly shaped, secured, and continually encouraged?
  3. Structures: what learning infrastructures and learning settings permit sustainable learning?

These sub-categories raise questions for a system of life-long learning that—through education and, specifically, adult education infrastructure—should encourage and facilitate social inclusion, participatory learning and education, personality development, and responsibility.

I examine these questions using specific focuses that are reflected in the further research areas.

From what I have observed in public perception and educational policy, the concept of sustainable learning is often primarily associated with a school context and thus related to the target group of school students as well as being thematically oriented for the most part to ecological aspects. In my opinion, too little consideration is devoted to whether education and life-long learning are conceived as sustainable across the range of contents, processes, and structures (see above) (i.e., not (adult) education for sustainability, but rather (adult) education as sustainability).

My further research areas take up this issue:

(3) International and comparative adult and further education

I primarily focus on adult education as sustainability in the context of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning.

Sample publications:

(4) Adult and further education and people with disabilities

Inclusion with regard to dis/ability, and in particular adult learners with learning disabilities (intellectual disabilities).

Sample publication:

I am currently working on the following research project on this subject:

Cooperative research alliance on everyday mathematics as a component of the basic education of adults (started in July 2017, 3.5 years); sub-study: everyday mathematical practices of people with learning disabilities, NumPuD: numerical practices and dis/ability (project lead: Silke Schreiber-Barsch). Sponsored by the Hamburg state research funding program. Research alliance consisting of: Universität Hamburg, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW), UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (Hamburg).

(5) Global citizenship education and political education

SDG 4 and sustainability are not purely educational issues, but also relate to democracy theory and political science approaches. Who is recognized as a citizen and therefore considered to have a right to education? Sample publication: 

Transfer research: how can research findings be transferred to teaching and degree program developments and studied further?

What activities are you planning as part of the SDG sponsorship? What possibilities do you see in (interdisciplinary) networking with other members of your sponsorship team?

  • Interdisciplinary exchange and expansion of the content-based and academic discussion
  •  Inclusion of the perspective of adult learners and didactic-methodological approaches for questions of transfer research and cross-faculty teaching activities
  • Discussion regarding expansion of international cooperation activities

Is your topic related to any of the 16 other SDGs?

In particular: SDG 1, SDG 3, SDG 11, SDG 16