The theoretical framework of the present research is based on the socio-psychological model of sustainable behaviour by Juárez-Nájera (2010). For the purposes of this paper, just part of the research is related to personal norms. The paper provides the results of the awareness of consequences and the attribution of responsibility for environmental/ sustainability problems among students of the four Faculties of Teacher Education in four countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia. Research results indicate that students from Croatian and Slovenian Faculties of Teacher Education are characterised by a more pronounced awareness of environmental/sustainability problems than the students from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. The responsibility for environmental/sustainability problems is higher among the students of the Faculty of Teacher Education from Croatia and Serbia than among students from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia. It seems that a country is the major determiner of awareness and responsibility for environmental/sustainability problems. In general, the results of the present research provide significant guidelines for the reflection on the future of initial teacher education for sustainability and need for conducting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research on personal norms and sustainable behaviour.

The aim of this paper is to provide guidelines for reflection and improvement of transversal competences of teachers in the field of self-regulation, education for sustainable development and inclusion in the context of their continuing professional development. Also, the moderatory effect of personality based on literature analysis and insight into empirical results will be demonstrated. Teachers’ reputation determines the framework of their professional development and is strongly influenced by social challenges, globalization, integration, sustainability, technological development, etc. In addition, a strongly biologically determined teacher’s personality significantly moderates the relationship of their professional development and transversal competences. Transversal competences are recognized as the teachers’ important skills in their organization of the teaching and learning process and their professional development, as well as in the process of them teaching these competences to their students. “Learning to learn” is recognized as the key lifelong learning competence in the European policy documents and the environmental and sustainability issues are some of the most common transversal themes of the general education curricula. The focus on the transversal competences is relatively new in education policies and has emerged as a reaction to the increased professional demands for a response to current educational needs of all students in inclusive environments. Analysis of transversal competences in the aforementioned three fields and their connection to personality traits will contribute to new knowledge regarding the teachers’ professional education. Therefore, this paper will present the theoretical frameworks of the complex relationship between the teachers’ reputation, personality and transversal competences in the light of the contemporary educational contexts.

This article presents the results of a continuing professional development (CPD) study of teachers in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Croatia. This article and research aimed to determine the contribution of educational forms to the likelihood of teachers becoming involved in CPD for ESD, as well as to engage in a discussion about the Competence-based approach in ESD. The tasks of the research were to determine the level of achieving ESD competences, the correlations with educational forms/training, and the contribution of forms of education/training for CPD for teachers in ESD. A survey questionnaire was developed, which contained a scale of self-assessment of teacher competencies for ESD. The sample of respondents comprised 1096 primary school teachers. The results indicate that an average high level of achievement competences was obtained, as well as a relation to individual forms of education. The results indicate 28% of the explanation of the total variance with regards to the contribution of educational forms to the level of achieved teacher competencies for ESD and a very small contribution to the likelihood of inclusion into CPD for ESD. The research points to the inadequate implementation of ESD in the CPD of teachers.

The modern approach to teaching in schools is based on encouraging pupils’ activity in learning about the natural and social phenomena; the pupil is an active participant in the teaching process. The “Nature and Society” subject curriculum emphasizes the use of ICT technologies and various teaching methods. The teacher, their practice, emotions, personality, and competencies play an important role in achieving the learning outcomes in school subjects, as well as in cross-curricular topics, such as is the Sustainable Development Curriculum. This paper presents a study that examined teachers’ Love and Care for nature as an important component of promotion of ESD and the practice of using modern approaches in teaching of the subject “Nature and Society”. The results of the study show that there is a statistically significant relationship between teachers’ Love and Care for nature and modern approaches to learning and teaching the subject “Nature and Society” and the implementation of ESD in primary schools in Croatia.

The teacher plays a key role in fostering sustainability and implementing Education for Sustainable Development at school. This paper presents a study aimed at adapting and validating a shorter version of the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) to measure student future teachers’ connectedness to nature. The scale has been translated into Croatian in an abbreviated form and applied to a specific sample of students from the Faculty of Teacher Education in Rijeka, Croatia (N = 138). One of the tasks was to examine whether there are statistically significant differences among students regarding their membership in eco-associations and previous participation in an Environmental Education/Education for Sustainable Development (EE/ESD) course. A special research objective was to determine the extent to which the current education and membership in an eco-association explain the connectedness to nature. In addition to the indicated research limitations, the results confirmed the significant measured characteristics of the scale. Education has so far proved to be a predictor of connectedness to nature. Additionally, the results showed that membership in an eco-association is a predictor of connectedness to nature. Based on the obtained results, it is possible to conclude that the connectedness to nature must be further explored, especially in the context of the initial education of future teachers, as a possible prerequisite for a successful practice of Education for Sustainable Development in schools.

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