With little to show for at present regarding results on education for sustainability (EfS), and the argument that it is often marginalized as far as the core content of the school curriculum is concerned, a study was carried out using questionnaire survey to (i) determine whether the level of concern and knowledge of environmental sustainability (ES) issues and terminologies by respondents reflect their perception of ES discussion within subjects and frequency of occurrence in the school curriculum, (ii) evaluate the relational dynamics of the education ministry and teachers (as major actors), with regard to flexibility in reorienting the content of the school curriculum towards EfS, (iii) To determine respondents' preferences for activities considered as effective in implementing EfS in schools.

385 students and 96 teachers were sampled from elementary (4), junior high (6) and senior high (4) schools in two towns, one small city and one regional city within a UN- designated Greater Sendai Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) in the Tohoku region of Japan.

Results/Conclusions

Environmental concern was the most prominent among the bottom lines considered, and also among several sustainability issues facing Japan. Landscape degradation and forest destruction, energetic resource depletion and air pollution were generally the primary environmental concerns. Though education and training for sustainability was considered to be the most important for pollution prevention, the respondents generally lacked knowledge of ES issues and terminologies considered in the study against the backdrop of a highly literate society. This lack of knowledge was partly attributed to the little discussion of ES issues and low occurrence of ES terminologies in the school curriculum, the failure of the media to provide adequate sustainability-related information (SRI) and the low frequency of access of SRI by the respondents. The impediments facing reorienting the school curriculum towards EfS were suggested as including government's inflexibility towards the school curriculum, lack of true ownership of EfS, busyness of teachers, lack of incentives for motivation and lack of training in ES. Preference for activities considered as effective in implementing EfS in schools was similar for both groups. The present marginalization of EfS in schools therefore calls for policy changes including EfS ownership, emphasis on certain subjects and the role of teachers. Furthermore, stakeholder perception of ecological/environmental information currently available with respect to relevance (plausibility, salience and legitimacy) needs evaluation.