Considering the differences in the control of education for sustainable development (ESD) in France and Chile and the more or less explicit place of the word sustainable development (SD) in the humanities and social sciences and natural sciences such two countries, this research attempts to identify how teachers and students, according to these disciplines, will represent the SD object. This is to highlight how their social representations (RS) reflected in the teaching-learning process of this socially controversial issue (QSV). To do this, we developed a methodological device that combines interviews and questionnaires for teachers. As for the students, this device is based entirely on questionnaires. Our results reveal the existence among teachers of both countries an RS SD fitted into that of a resource-environment. This representation would be more pronounced among Chilean teachers, thus generating a developmentalist perception in their understanding of SD issues. Although students of all classes share a RS rooted in the realization of eco-gestures, the developmentalist referred is also present among Chilean students. In light of our results, we believe that without a distancing in the construction of knowledge and spreading controversy, educational practices acquire a transmissive pace that does not promote understanding of the complex issues involved in implementing it global project.