Abstract
According to the Brundtland Report in 1987, sustainable development (SD) is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. SD became a keyword of the era, but this concept is always interpreted differently depending on different interests. One of the difficulties in the education for SD (orESD) is the confusion that comes from the ambiguity of the concept of SD. However, such ambiguity is not always inconvenient in ESD. Rather, understanding of the ambiguity makes it possible to compare similarities and differences in different interpretations and distinguish between "Weak SD" and "Strong SD". This kind of critical thinking is indispensable for preventing SD from becoming meaningless. The purpose of this paper is to introduce three models that can be used for education on the ambiguity of the concept of SD and to clarify that these models are effective in cultivating critical thinking on it. In this paper, I will focus on the three models concerning the polysemy of SD and examine the features of each model and their implications for ESD. (This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP18K11751.)
