A Tool for Measuring Young People's Attitudes Surrounding Sustainability and Citizenship: The Application of a ‘Sustainable Citizenship’ Survey

Author(s):

Jen Banks(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 11 C, Assessing ESE and Programs

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-25

17:15-18:45

Room:

NM-Theatre L

Chair:

Elsa Lee

Contribution

UNESCO’s ‘Decade of Education for Sustainable Development’ ended in 2014. The Bonn Declaration states that “education for sustainable development is immediately necessary for securing sustainable life chances, aspirations and futures for young people” (UNESCO, 2009, p1). However the question arises as to how, if at all, the education taught within this decade can be assessed. As Barry (2006) states, fundamental sustainability education taught in a local context with a global perspective encompassing the socio-economic and political dimensions to environmental issues is currently lacking. From 2007 Northern Ireland phased in The Revised Northern Curriculum. Encouragingly this curriculum includes Education for Sustainable Development and Local and Global Citizenship, however in the main these concepts are not usually assessed as individual subjects through formal assessment for all students, nor is there any assessment of the connections young people make between sustainability and citizenship. This paper discusses the use of a tool for measuring attitudes surrounding sustainability and citizenship through the application of a large scale ‘Sustainable Citizenship’ survey in Northern Ireland.

Young people in Northern Ireland (no=1136, age 14-15 years old) were asked where they have learnt about citizenship in terms of Local Citizenship, Global Citizenship, and Sustainable Citizenship and about sustainability in terms of Environmental Sustainability, Social Sustainability, and Economic Sustainability in existing school subjects including Geography, History, Science, RE, Employability, Citizenship, Home Economics, and Personal Development. In addition, the survey contains psychometric measures to assess attitudes through using the ‘Nature Relatedness Scale’ (Nisbet, 2009), the ‘Competence for Civic Action Scale’ (Flanagan et al, 2007) and a new ‘Sustainable Citizenship Scale’ developed specifically for this survey with the assistance of a Peer Advisory Group of ten young Co-Researchers using a children's rights based approach.

Various types of 'green' citizenships have been referred to collectively by Van Poeck et al (2009) as sustainable citizenship; however Sustainable Citizenship is used as a separate concept in this research. A Sustainable Citizen, previously defined differently by Micheletti & Stolle (2012) (their definition appears influenced by sustainable development as defined in the Brudtland Report (Brundtland, 1987)) thinks about how their behaviour affects the environmental, social, and economic parts of the world and the people in it. A sustainable citizen is critical of how life is lived in order to change the systems that perpetuate unsustainable behaviour. The definition used in this research differs slightly from Micheletti & Stolle (2012) and is more greatly influenced by the concept of sustainability as defined by the World Council of Churches (1974) through aiming for a just, participatory, sustainable society.

Aim:

To explore where and how young people in Northern Ireland have learnt about and connect sustainability and citizenship.

Objectives:

To determine in which school subjects young people learn about various aspects/facets of sustainability and citizenship.
To develop a reliable and valid measure of ‘sustainable citizenship’.
To examine the extent to which young people in Northern Ireland exhibit the features of ‘sustainable citizenship’.

Research Questions

1. What factors influence the extent to which young people exhibit features of ‘sustainable citizenship’?

2. To what extent do young people understand sustainability in relation to its environmental, social, and economic dimensions?

3. How do young people conceptualise citizenship as it relates to sustainability?

In relation to the Research Questions 1, 2 and 3

• How is this mediated by young people’s identity (e.g. gender, social class, religion, and their perception of local/global citizenship)?

• How is this mediated by young people’s relatedness to nature?

• How is this mediated by young people’s competence for civic action?

• How is this influenced by young people’s experience of education for ‘sustainable citizenship’

Method

The attitudes of 1136 14-15 year old students towards sustainability (environmental, social, and economic) and citizenship were explored with an online survey in 26 schools in Northern Ireland using stratified random sampling. This study drew on the children’s rights based approach used by Lundy and McEvoy (2012a) requiring researchers to use ‘children’s rights standards to inform research design’ (Lundy & McEvoy (2012a p6). One aspect of this approach is working with children as Co-Researchers in advisory groups, involving them throughout the research process (Lundy & McEvoy, 2009). Ten young Co-Researchers (14-15 years old) in a Peer Advisory Group (PAG) had their capacity built and were consulted at various stages throughout the research including survey design. The survey contained a mixture of questions. Firstly, questions designed for descriptive analysis such as ranking from 1-6 which group of people the respondents considered themselves to belong to, including European people, Irish people, people of the world, Northern Irish people, British people, and other group of people as well as asking the respondents in what subjects they learn about sustainability and citizenship, as explained previously. Secondly, psychometric measures for regression including the ‘Nature Relatedness Scale’ (Nisbet, 2009), the ‘Competence for Civic Action Scale’ (Flanagan et al, 2007) and a new ‘Sustainable Citizenship Scale’. Thirdly, engaging dilemmas, modelled on the design used by Garcia et al (2012). Finally, open ended questions to encourage expression on a range of issues. In addition the PAG helped to include capacity building within the survey by assisting survey participants in forming their views, as done by Lundy and McEvoy (2012b). This included definitions of environmental, social, and economic sustainability, and local, global, and sustainable citizenship written with the assistance of the Co-Researchers. These strategies resulted in a survey that is potentially more accurate in assessing both where young people are learning about these issues as well as young people’s attitudes surrounding citizenship and sustainability.

Expected Outcomes

The expected outcome of this research is a better understanding of where young people in Northern Ireland are learning about sustainability and citizenship, how young people connect sustainability and citizenship, and how they exhibit features of sustainable citizenship. Statistical analysis of the survey ascertains how this varies at various levels such as jurisdiction, school, and individual, and whether this is influenced by factors other than education. Questions include ‘what sustains young people?’, ‘why don’t young people behave as sustainable citizens?’, and asks whether one day ‘we will all behave sustainably’. In addition a scale was developed to measure the concept of sustainable citizenship. The research examines a tool for exploring in which subjects education for sustainability and citizenship is taught as well as a means of measuring ‘sustainable citizenship’. This has the potential to be applied in other contexts and compared internationally. A nationally representative exploration of the issues surrounding sustainability and citizenship portray how research can contribute to existing knowledge of how to assess or measure attitudes that may be affected by sustainability and citizenship education throughout the world.

References

Barry, J. (2006) "Resistance is fertile: from environmental to sustainability citizenship", Environmental citizenship, vol. 21. Brundtland, G.H. (1987) World Commission on environment and development: our common future, Oxford University Press. Flanagan, C.A., Syvertsen A.K., & Stout M.D. (2007) "Civic Measurement Models: Tapping Adolescents' Civic Engagement. CIRCLE Working Paper 55." Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). García, T., Ordoñez, E., Preckler, M., Sainz, V., Pérez, E., Manjarrez, M.P., García, A.J., Maldonado, A. & Jacott, L. (2012) "From traditional to cosmopolitan views on citizenship education: A new instrument for evaluation", Available at https://metranet.londonmet.ac.uk/fms/MRSite/Research/cice/pubs/2012/2012_528.pdf [2015, 29/01]. Geuss, R. 1981, The idea of a critical theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School, Cambridge University Press. Lundy, L. & McEvoy , L. (2012a) "Childhood, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Research: What Constitutes a ‘Rights-Based’ Approach?", Child and Family Law Quarterly, vol. 331, pp. 350. Lundy, L. & McEvoy, L. (2012b) "Children’s rights and research processes: Assisting children to (in) formed views", Childhood, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 129-144. Lundy, L. & McEvoy, L. (2009) "Developing outcomes for educational services: a children’s rights‐based approach", Effective Education, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 43-60. Micheletti, M. & Stolle, D. (2012) "Sustainable Citizenship and the New Politics of Consumption", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 644, pp. 88-120. Nisbet, E. K. L., Zelenski, J. M., & Murphy, S. A. (2009) “The Nature Relatedness Scale: Linking individuals’ connection with nature to environmental concern and behaviour” Environment and Behavior, vol. 41, pp. 715-740. Van Poeck, K., Vandenabeele, J. & Bruyninckx, H. (2009), “Sustainable citizenship and education”, CRLL Conference, Lifelong Learning Revisited: What Next?. UNESCO (2009) The Bonn Declaration, Available: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001887/188799e.pdf [2014, 22/04]. World Council of Churches (1974) Report of 1974 consultation on "Science and Technology for Human Development", Study Encounter no. 69, p.2.

Author Information

Jen Banks (presenting / submitting)

Queen's University Belfast

School of Education

Belfast

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