Developing sustainable communities by integrating the sustainable development concept into university courses: social science lecturers’ perspectives in UKM

Abstract

Sustainable cities are formed by sustainable communities and vice versa. Developing sustainable cities and sustainable communities need individuals who are taught about the principles, criteria and elements of sustainable development (SD) and sustainability, and have been ‘bred’ in sustainable environments at least during the students’ years in sustainable campuses. To enable the university students to learn about and practice sustainable SD, all courses must be integrated with SD elements. Therefore, the understanding and willingness of lecturers to integrate SD principles and elements in their courses is very vital. The purpose is to discuss the relationship between social science lecturers’ understandings towards SD concept and their beliefs in integrating this concept into their own courses in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Lecturers’ understandings of SD concept and beliefs in integrating the concept into the courses are important because they can facilitate the implementation stage of integrating SD concept into various courses at the university. Statistically, the results of this study indicated that the relationship between lecturers’ understandings towards SD concept and their beliefs in integrating the concept into social science courses is significant at p<0.05. Unfortunately, the relationship showed a very low level of strength, which is 0.22. However, the qualitative results showed that several lecturers illustrated a very high level of belief in integrating SD concept into their courses even though they do not fully understand the concept. Thus, the findings suggested that training should be implemented for social science lecturers to enhance their level of understanding towards SD concept and explore the appropriate teaching approach in integrating this concept into the courses.