Volume 14, Number 2

Aesthetic Mapping of Values: A Practitioerled Model for Integrating Sustainable Development Goals in Teacher Education

  Authors

Ashok Pandey, GEMS Education, India

  Abstract

TThis study presents a practitioner-led pedagogical approach for integrating values-based education with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the Values Ascension and Alignment Model (VAAM). Despite strong policy emphasis on values and global citizenship education, teachers often experience SDGs as abstract policy goals rather than as extensions of their professional ethics. The study therefore explores whether aesthetic mapping of values can enable teachers to internalize and align SDGs with their personal and pedagogical value systems. The research is based on a practitioner-led action research design involving over 500 in-service teachers across three Indian cities over a one-year period. Through workshops incorporating reflection, aesthetic value mapping, SDG alignment, and collaborative inquiry, teachers were invited to represent core values using colors, symbols, and visual metaphors. The researcher collected data through artefacts, pre- and post-workshop surveys, facilitator’s observations, and follow-up interviews. Findings of the research indicate that teachers consistently organized values across three domains, personal, relational, and systemic. This sequencing of values recognition formed the conceptual basis of the VAAM framework. The aesthetic mapping process strengthened emotional engagement with values and significantly increased teachers’ perception of alignment between their professional ethics and the SDGs. The findings of the study are twofold. First, aesthetic approaches can bridge the gap between global policy frameworks and lived classroom practice. And two, there is away to transform SDG engagement from a duty-driven exercise into a values-driven commitment. The findings also offer a low-cost, scalable solution for integrating SDGs into teacher professional development. These findings make a significant contribution to operational sing the values-based vision of contemporary education policies such as India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

  Keywords

Aesthetic Pedagogy, Global Citizenship Education (GCED), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Teacher Reflection, and Values-Based Education.