Environmental problems in China are intensifying and it is vital to evaluate the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of the generation poised to inherit their management. This study examines a survey of environmental awareness among Chinese students (aged between 16 and 20 years). Considering the contrasting levels of regional economic development and environmental problems in the eastern/coastal and western/inland regions of China, we examine how environmental differences affect university students' environmental awareness. Data were analyzed statistically using nonparametric tests to compare a population of urban residents from a developed region against a similar population of urbanites from a less-developed region. Students in the samples possessed rather low levels of environmental knowledge, but had positive environmental attitudes and were willing to commit to environment-friendly behaviors. Students growing up in developed versus less-developed settings had significantly different levels of general environmental awareness despite their shared exposure to institutionalized environmental education.
This paper compares the news coverage of bridge collapses in the United States and China to reveal how the cultural, political, and social differences of these two countries influence the ways in which disasters are represented to the public. By applying qualitative and quantitative research methods, the study examines the variations in news articles in different newspapers on bridge collapses. The results of this study indicate that news articles from Chinese newspapers, The People's Daily and The Shanghai Daily, paid more attention to event description and consequences. News accounts from The Houston Chronicle showed similar patterns as their counterparts in China, but news articles from The New York Times highlighted bridge safety and the responsibility of either the government or specific members of the public in their reports. Chinese reporting may result in more effective risk communication and greater personal awareness of hazards as readers in each country are similarly embedded in discursive contexts that define their roles as consumers of news and as risk managers or decision makers.
This study examines the cultural variation of risk perception and attitudes toward emergency evacuation. Although evacuation behavior is a direct consequence of perceived risk, few attempts have been made to consider the cross-cultural differences of evacuation behavior. This article compares domestic American and international university students’ familiarity with their residential environments, their expressions of intent to evacuate in advance of hurricanes of varying strength, and their personal experiences with hurricanes and evacuations by examining related variables. Logistic regression was used to analyze the 2007 survey data. Results indicate that international students are more familiar with their residential risk conditions than domestic students. Environmental familiarity correlates positively with students’ certainty of future evacuations. The expressed likelihood of evacuation under voluntary order also correlates positively with international and domestic students’ certainty of future hurricane evacuation. Past disaster and evacuation experiences contribute to international students’ certainty about future responses, but do not affect those of domestic students. Experiences with false alarms determine domestic students’ certainty more than international students’ future behaviors. Evacuation experiences associated with Hurricane Rita, 2005, increased all students’ certainty of future hurricane evacuation.
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