Tania Dias Fonseca

Purpose: This study aims to discuss the development of a bespoke education for sustainable development (ESD) staff online training module co-created by a student-staff partnership, identifying barriers and staff support needs. Design/methodology/approach: A two-stage approach using quantitative design and descriptive analysis was used. First, sustainability integration within teaching, barriers to integration and staff support needs were mapped across the courses in the institution, which fed into the co-creation of the online module. Findings: Participants (n = 123) enrolled on the module engaged most strongly with videos, quizzes and self-paced activities, with peak engagement in the early stages which subsequently declined. Strong initial uptake and cross-functional participation suggest the module’s potential to build institutional sustainability capacity. Research limitations/implications: Limitations of the study include the small mapping sample drawn only from academics, limited qualitative insight into participants’ motivations and disengagement, and the module’s non-compulsory status, which possibly reduced uptake. Practical implications: Preferred formats that ease workload and help embed sustainability into curricula, aligned with ESD frameworks, highlight the need for compulsory status and stronger institutional support for professional development to sustain engagement. Social implications: Cross-functional staff engagement with ESD strengthens shared responsibility, developing socially responsible graduates, contributing to social equity and global citizenship. Originality/value: A co-created module offering an inclusive framework for embedding ESD across diverse roles. It provides insights into staff preferences, institutional barriers and the value of student–staff partnerships, highlighting a scalable approach to strengthening institutional sustainability practice.

The recent rapid expansion of digital technologies brought with it the promise that these technologies would bring citizens, and especially youth, closer to political decision-making processes. But studies on youth participation and technology suggest that this promise has failed to materialize. The present article looks at nontraditional and informal online forms of civic participation to better understand students’ civic agency when using the Internet. Results from a countrywide survey of 11th- and 12th-grade students in Portugal suggest that their informal online civic participation (e.g., posting and sharing civically relevant items) is positively correlated with their formal civic participation offline (e.g., in community groups and school decision-making), perceived opportunities to participate offline, and formal online civic participation. In addition, students tend to react to and share civic content on online social networks more often than they perform more structured and formalized civic actions. The results suggest that the Internet is a space of youth civic agency and participation – a global playground – contrasting with formal institutional and formal online spaces, where youth lack a voice.

Whilst various studies have examined participation on the Internet as a key element of a new emergent civic engagement, informally or formally through national and local governments’ online measures, less has been done to measure or suggest ways of overcoming social and technological constraints on online civic participation. Additionally, few studies have looked at the relationship between the actual implementation of such initiatives in classrooms and the messages which are conveyed indirectly as a result of teachers’ own conceptions of classroom strategies, which are perhaps better described as a “hidden curriculum”. This paper reports on these constructions through a set of detailed quantitative and qualitative case studies of the implementation of civic engagement through online activity in several regions of Portugal. The data, obtained through questionnaires, were used to produce novel composite scores reflecting the participatory and media literacy strategies of schools, as well as teachers and students’ media literacy and online civic actions. We present empirical results from a study population consisting of 12 public secondary school principals, 131 teachers, and 1,392 students in grades 11 and 12, suggesting that students’ online civic engagement and media literacy levels are affected by their teachers’ classroom practices and further training and by the implementation of a project-based approach to media education.Mientras que numerosos estudios han examinado la participación en internet como elemento clave de una nueva involucración cívica emergente, informal o formal, a través de medidas gubernamentales locales o nacionales on-line, el esfuerzo ha sido menor para medir o sugerir formas de superar las restricciones sociales y tecnológicas de la participación cívica on-line. Pocos estudios se han centrado en la relación entre la implementación de las iniciativas en las aulas y los mensajes expresados indirectamente como resultado de las concepciones personales de los docentes en las estrategias didácticas que probablemente pueden ser descritas como «currículo oculto». Nos basamos en un análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo de un conjunto de estudios de casos sobre la implementación del compromiso cívico a través de actividades en línea en varias regiones de Portugal. Los datos obtenidos a través de cuestionarios fueron usados para crear un sistema de puntuación capaz de reflejar las estrategias escolares sobre la participación y la alfabetización mediática, así como, la acción cívica on-line de docentes y alumnos. Presentamos los resultados empíricos con una población que comprende 12 directores de escuelas públicas secundarias, 131 docentes y 1.392 alumnos de los cursos 11º y 12º. Los resultados sugieren que los niveles mediáticos de los estudiantes y sus niveles de compromiso cívico on-line están influenciados por las prácticas de sus profesores, su formación y por la implantación de proyectos de alfabetización mediática.