Educação para sustentabilidade em administração: uma análise das concepções de estudantes da UFPB

• Autor(a) principal: Farias, Luciana Cabral
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFPB
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/tede/9384
• topic: Educação para Sustentabilidade; Educação em Administração; Fenomenografia; Education for Sustainability; Education in Business Administration; Phenomenography; CIENCIAS SOCIAIS APLICADAS::ADMINISTRACAO

The discourse of sustainability has intensified over the past decades, highlighting a number of relevant concerns to the debate on issues related to it. Despite the importance of fomenting this debate in the field of ideas, the same intensity has not been reflected in the scope of actions. Education for sustainability arises, before this context, as a way to operationalize this transposition of discourse to practice and to emphasize how important is the role of education in building a sustainable society, aware of the importance that today's actions have to the future. It is expected, therefore, that higher education takes the leading role in the discourse on business and sustainability, making managers prepared to meet the demands of the working world and that are able to think and take actions aimed at reaching a sustainable business - understood from a perspective that transcends economic issues surrounding it - and contribute, therefore, to build a sustainable world. In this context, this study aimed to analyze the concepts of sustainability of the students of Business Administration of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) throughout their formation. In terms of methodology, this paper carried out a phenomenographic research. This choice was based on the fact that phenomenography is a qualitative and descriptive approach whose goal is to empirically investigate how people experience, understand and give meaning to a phenomenon in the world around them, in this case, sustainability. Moreover, its application at the UFPB took into account the relevance of studying education for sustainability in a university campus inserted in an Atlantic Forest environment. Three concepts of sustainability were identified by the students during the course: „opportunity‟, „resources‟ e „sense of community‟, from the most superficial to deepest, respectively. The survey revealed that most of the students interviewed conceive sustainability in terms of resources - an intermediate idea (in relation to those identified in the study). Observing the variation of these concepts yearly, it was not possible to identify a deepening that could indicate it to be a result from these students‟ formation process. Five directions were appointed by students for incorporating sustainability in administrator formation: the creation of a specific discipline focused on sustainability; the approach to sustainability in an interdisciplinary manner; practice as a contribution to the theory; promoting the scientific research projects that address on this theme; and conducting institutional awareness campaigns on sustainability. Isolated actions are important, but they represent a palliative when considering the challenges of incorporating sustainability in education. More than that, there needs to be an institutional effort that embraces the actors involved in the teaching-learning process - students, professors, staff and managers - to reformulate routines, structures and deeply rooted practices, taking thus the privileged position that universities have in society to influence it positively towards sustainability.