Hi, welcome back! I hope everyone is still doing alright as we near the end of our first semester.
In the previous post, I mentioned the author Charles Saylan and his book The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It).
This week’s post is largely inspired by some of the quotes from his interview with Yale Environment 360.
So far in this blog, I have mentioned social media, family and education as factors affecting environmentalism, so which is the most crucial factor?
From a survey, it seems that general consensus is that family has the most influence on a child’s development, followed by educational institutions and then social media. In a previous post, Kelly asked a great question: If the family fails to educate the child in environmental awareness, should this responsibility fall onto the educational institution?
If we wish to claim our education system to provide holistic learning, then the environment should be included as it is so interconnected. We need to look at the primary and secondary educational institutes in order to reach as many students as possible. Based on my survey, it seems that there is still much room for improvement.
Saylan also saw that environmental education in the U.S. was lacking and hence strived to provide better environmental education. But after running a few environmental programmes, he realised something peculiar.
“We saw a lot of growth in motivation in the students, but interestingly, while most of the inner city schools continued the program, the affluent schools, for the most part, abandoned it.”
This perhaps highlights the difference in values between the affluent and less affluent. What is it with our socio-economic status that creates a distinction between our environmental values and commitments? Perhaps the financial ability led us to deal with our struggles easier, and hence built a psychological thinking that problems can be solved easily and quickly.
“We were working with a highly aware community that wasn’t doing the right thing. I started to question whether awareness translates to action at all”
This quote by Saylan really stood out to me. We have been so caught up with spreading environmental awareness, but it seems that we have an even greater problem than ignorance – inaction.
As this paper suggests, perhaps the mindset that we are a part of nature (which we often use) is not a strong enough driving factor to prompt action. The researchers suggest that a “politicized environmental identification” creates a desire to act based on the group’s cause and this may be a better way to promote pro-environmental actions. However, Saylan had also criticised the politicisation of environmentalism, saying that it creates a division in people and presents the false dichotomy of environment or free market.
So what group identity should we associate ourselves with? In Saylan’s words, “Responsible citizenship”.
With this in mind, perhaps we should stop calling ourselves environmentalists which can potentially ostracise certain groups. Instead, by identifying as a group of responsible citizens, it sounds less of a battle between political ideologies and more of a unified effort across all stakeholders.
What do you think of the use of “environmentalist” as a form of identification? Let me know in the comments!
Hey Jia Wei!
There are so many interesting points in this post! I was surprised at how it was the affluent schools that abandoned the environmental programmes, because I always felt that those more privileged were able to focus on the environment and climate change more as they had their more immediate needs secured. Maybe it’s a balance between this, and the notion that money can get one out of problems, that determines how invested we are in environmental advocacy. What do you think?
With other friends, I’ve actually discussed the point about calling ourselves “advocates” in the past. Although it is important to be non-divisive, I feel like, we should be encouraging everyone to be “environmentalists”? Not everyone needs to be extensively passionate or extreme in their climate action, but simply having respect and consideration for the environment, to me, can justify being called an “environmentalist”.
Hope all this makes sense haha! Great job for this post (:
Anna
Hi Anna,
I agree that there is an invisible balance that plays a role in determining whether we act for the environment. However, there are probably many more factors besides affluence that determine environmentalism and hence why I find psychology and the environment so interesting.
While I agree that “environmentalists” do not need to be extremely passionate about the earth, some may think otherwise. The thought of “environmentalism” being a form of extreme will definitely deter some from identifying as one, because they feel that they cannot commit to a fully eco-friendly lifestyle. Hence, I feel that it may be counterproductive to keep pushing for people to be environmentalists and a more inclusive sounding term could be more effective.
Thanks for dropping by!
Hi Jia Wei,
Wow, your blog, week on week, just resonates with everything I’m about. I encourage you to (once the sem is over, if you’re still into this whole topic) read about the theory of planned behaviour and the theory of reasoned action. They’re related to each other, but they explain the causes of behavioural change in slightly different ways.
Also, I wonder how you will receive the last segment of week 12 content, and how the message in the film A Fierce Green Fire (if you drink water, and you like clean water, then that makes you an environmentalist) resonated with you.
Here’s my answer to your question.
Frank Lloyd Wright said “I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” No quote better epitomises who I am and why I identify as an environmentalist. Truly, Nature is my temple. And by Nature, I mean the entire biosphere, including humanity. So, I love all species just like religious people love their gods and believe I must care for my temple like religious people care for their houses of worship. And so your phrase “unified stakeholders” sits quite well with me.
Hi Dr. Coleman,
Thank you for the recommendation, I will take a look at those theories when I have the time!
The message in the A Fierce Green Fire film was a refreshing view on what being an environmentalist means. With that definition, we can say that everybody is an environmentalist. Like in a previous comment, I think there is still a very divided perception of what being an environmentalist means. There are still a significant number of people who think that being an environmentalist equates to a complete shift in lifestyle straightaway which acts as a barrier for them to try to start adopting better lifestyle habits.
Ideally, we would want to encourage people to feel that the term “environmentalist” is more inclusive, but I am concerned that there are some drawbacks to such an all-encompassing view like the one presented in the film. Part of the psychological factors that invokes action is the pressure to align with a group’s cause and find a sense of belonging by acting in a way that is accepted by the social group. If we have such an inclusive view, that “as long as you drink water” you are an environmentalist, then there is no psychological push for people to do more in order to feel like they belong in the group. Hence, even though we may have more people proclaiming to be “environmentalists”, it may not equal to the same level of increase in environmental actions taken.
Hi Jia Wei, thanks for this informative post! I enjoyed reading this as I feel that education is a big part of many solutions, and not just about environmental issues. After all, education brings an issue to light and increases awareness in people. In fact, my post next week talks about how environmental issues are weaved into our Primary to JC curricula, which I’m sure if you don’t take notice of it, many people may not be aware that there is a conscious effort to integrate the two together.
Though, upon seeing the results of your survey, I’m surprised that social media ranks so low in terms of influence. I do agree that education from family and educational institutes are important, and perhaps that’s why social media comes behind the other two factors. But considering how widespread online and social media is these days and how frequent the younger generation uses it, are there other reasons why social media ranks the lowest? Thanks!
Hi Ernest,
I was quite surprised by the survey results as well. Although I expected “Family” to be the obvious first pick, I thought there would be a closer competition between “Education” and “Social Media” as a second pick.
This could be due to most of the survey respondents being exposed to social media only at a later stage of education (personally I only really got involved at Primary 6). This means that in their formative years, they were more influenced by their educational institutes than social media.
However, there could be a shift in that in the newer generations due to how widespread social media is now. I view it as a double-edged sword as social media promotes viral over informative. While social media can be a platform for environmentalism, it has to contest with other content and even fake news. If the child does not exercise critical thinking, they can be easily misled to think that climate change is a hoax, for example.
Looking forward to your next post!
Hi Jia Wei,
You and Ernest raise interesting points. My student, LOH Jia Xin found that environmental knowledge was the best predictor of pro-environmental behaviours among NUS students and that informal knowledge (e.g., acquired through watching documentaries, social media, the Internet) mattered more than formal knowledge (acquired in school).
If you had prefaced your Q with : think back to your childhood (i.e., up until age 10) – what had the biggest influence on your development… you might have gotten a different answer.
Because you’re asking people who don’t now have kids to respond to a Q about what influences childhood development. So you don’t know if they’re answering based on their personal experience or what they think is happening with kids today.
Not a criticism at all – just an observation.
Hi Dr. Coleman,
I see! Now that you mention it, there is some ambiguity in the responses.
For my opinion regarding Jia Xin’s findings, it could be that the students got majority of their environmental knowledge from informal sources, rather than from their educational institutes. This might explain why informal knowledge mattered more, and is how I would personally compare the two too. Informal sources such as social media have broadened my environmental perspective far more than what Singapore’s educational institutes have done (pre-BES of course). If we actually had similar levels of formal and informal environmental education, I wonder if that finding would change?
Totally.
But also, we have to acknowledge that self-reported data, though valuable, may yield different findings from experimental studies, whether those involve controlled-trials or longitudinal studies.
Meaning, you say informal education mattered to you more. But did it really or is that just what you think ?
One way to test this would be to compare cohorts of students – one who receives no environmental education, one who receives a formal curriculum and one who receives only informal education. And then see how, if at all, those cohorts differ in their attitudes and behaviours.
Thanks for your reply and you don’t have to rush to answer this comment just because it’s the last day for blogging and you don’t have to reply at all if you don’t want to. It’s all good.
jc
Yes I do think a controlled study like that could give us a more objective comparison between informal and formal environmental education.
I do, however, wonder how we can quantify the amount of impact from each. I do believe that every individual is shaped by “nature” and “nurture”, perhaps some people may just be born with greater inclination towards nature and this acts as a confounder? Furthermore I foresee a really big challenge to eliminate the presence of informal education, because of the proliferation of social media. The study of human behaviour is so complex, would love to discuss more about this topic with you in the future!