Investigating the Dip in the Adolescents’ Sustainability Consciousness

Author(s):

Daniel Olsson(presenting / submitting)Niklas Gericke(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 02 B, ESE Related to Societal Development

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

15:15-16:45

Room:

105.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Paul Vare

Contribution

Previous research has shown that interest in and concern about environmental issues tends to dip in adolescence, but less is known about adolescents’ broader consciousness of sustainable development, also including economic and social issues. Kaplan and Kaplan (2002) describe the period (when adolescents prepare to enter adulthood at ages of 14-16 years) as a ‘time out’ in young people’s preference for the natural environment. There are also others that have found the same tendency in studies of young people’s environmental knowledge, attitudes behavior or interest (Negev et al., 2008; Uitto & Saloranta, 2010; Liefländer & Bogner, 2014). Kaplan and Kaplan (2002) argue that the adolescent dip arises from interactions between cultural and evolutionary factors related to three informational needs of humans: the need to explore and seek information, the need for understanding and the need of taking action. These needs seem to be strongest in adolescence, and adolescents need to feel that they are involved in planning and decisions concerning them.

Hence, previous studies have consistently detected a dip in adolescents’ environmental concern. However, little is known about changes in their consciousness of sustainability more broadly, including economic and social besides the environmental dimensions. This study therefore aims to assess whether a similar dip occurs in adolescents’ broader consciousness of sustainable development (SD), encompassing economic and social dimensions as well as the previously investigated environmental dimension.

SD issues are complex, due to the highly interactive social, economic and environmental factors involved, and difficult to address educationally using a traditional environmental approach (Borg et al., 2012; Sandell et al., 2005). A need for an approach in teaching and learning adapted to SD issues called education for sustainable development (ESD) has been identified and is thoroughly described by Sandell and colleagues (2005) and Mogensen and Schnack (2010). ESD could be regarded as a teaching approach that may meet the educational needs of adolescents, as described by Kaplan and Kaplan (2002), because of its focus on empowering students and engaging them in addressing and making decisions regarding SD issues. However, before promoting widespread adoption of such an approach it is important to rigorously test the hypothesis that adolescents’ broader consciousness of SD dip. Our research group has recently developed an instrument for surveying students’ sustainability consciousness (SC), a broad concept integrating affective and cognitive aspects of the three dimensions of SD (see Berglund et al., 2014; Olsson, 2014; Olsson et al., 2015). The concept of sustainability consciousness and the survey instrument is in a good way adapted for the aim of this study.

Method

Participants for this study were selected from Swedish students spanning the age range in which a dip or reduction in environmental and/or social attitudes and concern has been identified in previous studies. Thus, 15-16 year-old adolescents were the focal group, and for comparative purposes we also selected a group of 12-13 year-old primary school students and a group of 18-19 year-old upper secondary school students. The study reported here is part of a larger investigation of the implementation of ESD in the Swedish school system, for which two sets of schools for each grade were selected from across Sweden: one adopting an explicit ESD approach and the other consisting of regular schools without such an approach. In this study we use the same samples, but solely focus on comparisons between the three age groups. A total of 2413 students participated, of which 934 were 6th graders, 841 were 9th graders and 638 were 12th graders. In a thorough literature review we found a questionnaire developed by Canadian authors (Michalos et al., 2011, 2012) that provided suitable foundations for an instrument related to SD issues. The instrument was refined to measure SC, i.e. knowingness, attitudes and behavior aspects in each of the environmental, economic and social dimensions, as described in detail by Olsson et al., (2015) and Berglund et al., (2014). The questionnaire includes 50 items, which were adapted to each grade in two pilot studies, resulting in three grade-adapted but compatible versions of the questionnaire. Each item invites responses on a five point Likert-scale ranging from (1) ‘strongly disagree’ to (5) ‘strongly agree’, with a ‘don’t know’ option. The environmental, economic and social dimensions of SD are covered by 17, 13 and 20 items, respectively, and the knowingness, attitude and behavioral aspects of SC by 19, 17 and 14 items, respectively. The questionnaires can be found on our website1. The data was analyzed in SPSS version 20 in order to investigate differences between the different age groups of students. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to investigate the full complexity of the students’ sustainability consciousness, while univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for investigate differences between students’ views of the SD dimensions separately.

Expected Outcomes

This study will contribute new knowledge by showing that the previously detected adolescent dip in environmental attitudes and concern (Liefländer & Bogner, 2014; Negev et al., 2008; Uitto & Saloranta, 2010) also occurs in students’ SC, i.e. it extends beyond environmental issues of SD to economic and social issues. In the MANOVA we found a significant difference in overall SC between the 6th and 9th graders (Wilks’ Lambda, p<0.001) and the 12th and 9th graders (Wilks’ Lambda, p<0.001). Thus, we can confirm that there is a dip, or “time out” in the words of Kaplan and Kaplan (2002), rather than a continuous decline throughout schooling. The results extend findings of several previous studies, in which the sampled population consisted solely of younger primary students and adolescents attending lower secondary school (e.g. Liefländer & Bogner, 2014; Negev et al., 2008), so the ‘rebound’ in upper secondary school was not detected. To meet the three informational needs, Kaplan and Kaplan (2002) suggest a teaching approach that involves high degrees of participation, and is less normative and adult-generated teaching than current approaches. The theory that they developed and is used within environmental education might also provide a model that validly describes the adolescent dip in SC. ESD, as outlined in literature (e.g. Mogensen & Schnack, 2010; Sandell et al., 2005) could thus provide an educational approach that is consistent with the educational implications of the informational needs (and potent shifts in these needs during adolescence), as described by Kaplan and Kaplan (2002). An ESD approach adapted to adolescents’ needs could thus provide a rational means of counteracting the adolescent dip in consciousness of and concern about sustainability issues, including environmental, economic and social dimensions. Note: 1. Web-addresses for the questionnaires: http://www.intra.kau.se/dokument/upload/C10B9B9407a521992BNXKHX7EC04/Survey%20instrument%206th%20grade.pdf?-session=rs:C10B9B9407a52196DCKhFF628D47 http://www.intra.kau.se/dokument/upload/C10B9B9407a521999AyJFE893282/Survey%20instrument%209th%20grade.pdf?-session=rs:C10B9B9407a52196DCKhFF628D47

References

Berglund, Gericke, & Chang Rundgren. (2014). The implementation of education for sustainable development in Sweden: Investigating the sustainability consciousness among upper secondary students, Research in Science & Technological Education, 32 (3), 318-339. Borg, Gericke, Höglund, & Bergman. (2012). The barriers encountered by teachers implementing education for sustainable development: discipline bound differences and teaching traditions. Research in Science & Technological Education, 30 (2), 185-207. Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (2002). Adolescents and the natural environment: A time out. Children and Nature. Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations, 227-257. Liefländer, A. K., & Bogner, F. X. (2014). The effects of children's age and sex on acquiring pro-environmental attitudes through environmental education. The Journal of Environmental Education, 45(2), 105-117. Michalos, A. C., Creech, H., McDonald, C., & Kahlke, P. M. H. (2011). Knowledge, attitudes and behaviours concerning education for sustainable development: Two exploratory studies. Social Indicators Research, 100(3), 391-413. Michalos, A. C., Creech, H., Swayze, N., Maurine Kahlke, P., Buckler, C., & Rempel, K. (2012). Measuring knowledge, attitudes and behaviours concerning sustainable development among tenth grade students in Manitoba. Social Indicators Research, 106, 213-230. Mogensen, F & Schnack, K. (2010). The action competence approach and the 'new' discourse of education for sustainable development, competence and quality criteria. Environmental Education Research, 16(1), 59-74. Negev, M., Sagy, G., Garb, Y., Salzberg, A., & Tal, A. (2008). Evaluating the environmental literacy of Israeli elementary and high school students. The Journal of Environmental Education, 39(2), 3-20. Olsson, D. (2014). Young People’s ’Sustainability Consciousness’: Effects of ESD Implementation in Swedish schools. Licentiate Thesis. Karlstad University studies 2014:56. Olsson, Gericke, & Chang-Rundgren. (2015). The effect of implementation of education for sustainable development in Swedish compulsory schools - assessing pupils’ sustainability consciousness. Environmental Education Research DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2015.1005057 Sandell, K., Öhman, J., Östman, L., Billingham, R., & Lindman, M. (2005). Education for sustainable development: Nature, school and democracy Studentlitteratur, Lund, Sweden. Uitto, A., & Saloranta, S. (2010). The relationship between secondary school students’ environmental and human values, attitudes, interests and motivations. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9(0), 1866-1872.

Author Information

Daniel Olsson (presenting / submitting)

Karlstad University

Karlstad

Niklas Gericke (presenting)

Karlstad University

Department of Environmental and Life Sciences