Educating young people about sustainable development: towards a culture of legality

Abstract

Sustainable development, as a regulatory and ethical framework, introduces into the debate on the safeguard of the environment by the idea of an individual and collective responsibility not only with regards to the present, but also to the world we want to leave to our children, calling education into question.
Educating the younger generations to take care of themselves, others and the planet is an unavoidable theme in substantiating the promotion of human rights and democratic practices and requires the acquisition of awareness about the value of moral principles that govern civil coexistence. The challenge of sustainability cannot therefore circumvent the question of legality.
Educational planning for sustainability in guiding values, behaviours, relationships and life experiences can promote the ethical formation of the younger generations, recovering the “pleasure of legality”, the sense of the
common good. In the shared commitment towards young people, it is possible to configure the ethical and anthropological renewal which sustainability requires, beyond the culture of indifference and irresponsibility.