Contents Related to SDGs Frequently and Infrequently Appeared in Junior High School English Textbooks

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted at the United Nations (UN) Summit in September 2015, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have significant implications for education. It is necessary for more people to share their views on solving various problems on Earth and to achieve the SDGs. In this regard, as Macalova (2020) mentions, “amongst other mediums of achieving these goals, language plays a significant role …….” Particularly, the role of English, which has the largest number of learners in the world, can be a very important communication tool. Therefore, learning about the SDGs in English classes could offer Japanese students a good opportunity to broaden and deepen their thinking about the world. With the above in mind, in this study, the main objective was to determine what content related to which SDGs was found frequently or infrequently in 18 designated junior high school English textbooks in Japan. The most frequent SDG-related topics were SDG16 "Peace, justice and strong institutions" and SDG11 "Sustainable cities and communities", and the most contents of SDG16 are about Hiroshima in Japan. On the other hand, SDG5 "Gender equality" and SDG2 "Zero hunger" do not appear often. The contents related to SDG5 and SDG2 are the stories about the events in foreign countries mainly.