Spanish language education in Australia and sustainable development goals (SDGs)

Abstract This paper advances a critical-theoretical exploration of the convergence between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Open Educational Resources (OERs), and languages education. It argues that this convergence can help advance emancipatory epistemologies and pedagogies oriented toward diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability (DEIS), not by appealing to universality, but by reflecting on their potentials, limitations, and situated frictions. It begins by exploring the broader frameworks of the SDGs and OERs, before critically interrogating the limitations of mainstream language textbooks in fostering equitable and inclusive pedagogical practices. Situated within the context of Spanish language education in Australian higher education, the paper focuses on two purposefully designed OERs for beginner and intermediate learners — JUNTXS and +JUNTXS — as illustrative examples of how open pedagogical approaches can embody and advance DEIS principles. These resources foreground the pluricentric and contested nature of Spanish, challenging hegemonic notions of (non)standardness and (non)nativeness, while inviting learners to engage with more-than-human relationalities and ecological interdependence. Positioning these OERs within broader debates on justice in open education, the paper challenges technocratic framings that reduce openness to access and affordability. Instead, it advances a relational vision of OERs as sites of critical pedagogy, epistemic disobedience, and liberatory learning. The paper concludes by reflecting on the role of language-learning OERs in fostering socially just and ecologically attuned educational practices in response to the urgent challenges articulated by the SDGs.