Standard Presentation (25-minute) Centering Social Justice Issues in Culturally Relevant SDG Materials more

Sat, Sep 16, 11:50-12:15 Asia/Tokyo

Since the establishment of the SDGs in 2015, a great deal of attention has been given to their achievement by the target date of 2030. This date for achievement is fast approaching, but many SDG-related social justice issues show no signs of being resolved. We believe foregrounding social justice issues that are relevant to university students in SDG education can make them more relatable. In English language teaching in Japan, the SDGs have inspired several language and CLIL textbooks. However, these materials tend to treat the SDGs as problems that must be addressed in other countries, rather than in Japan, and the emphasis is solely on the SDGs without connecting them to social issues. To fill this gap, this presentation introduces a teaching method for low-intermediate to advanced learners in which teachers and students collaboratively select social justice issues that they feel are most important ranging from gender equality to ocean pollution and climate justice. This pedagogy uses existing research to develop effective methods to teach the SDGs as both global social justice issues and problems in Japan. We discuss the efficacy of this teaching approach, our student-teacher- collaborative method for developing level-appropriate materials, and initial research findings including student reactions.