Teachers’ Pedagogical Competence Reconstruction for Sustainable Primary Education: Strengthening Socio-Ecological Consciousness

Abstract

The global sustainability crisis requires a shift in educational paradigms from an exclusive focus on academic achievement toward fostering learners' awareness of the interconnectedness between humans, society, and the environment. In this context, teachers' pedagogical competence continues to be predominantly understood as a set of technical and instructional skills, limiting its contribution to sustainability-oriented primary education. This study aims to reconstruct teachers' pedagogical competence through the perspective of socio-ecological consciousness as a foundation for sustainable primary education. The study employed a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Literature was retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, Google Scholar, and accredited Indonesian journals (SINTA), covering publications from 2015 to 2025. A total of 42 eligible articles were analyzed through literature reduction, thematic coding, conceptual synthesis, and framework construction. The findings indicate that teachers' pedagogical competence should be reconstructed through four interrelated dimensions reflective, contextual, transformative, and ethical-relational that collectively foster learners' socio-ecological consciousness. Based on the synthesis, this study proposes the Socio-Ecological Pedagogical Competence Framework as a conceptual model that strengthens Indonesia's four teacher competencies pedagogical, professional, social, and personal from the perspective of sustainability-oriented education. The proposed framework contributes to pedagogical theory and provides a conceptual reference for teacher education, curriculum development, and sustainable primary education.