Education for Environmental Citizenship and Responsible Environmental Behaviour

Abstract

The notion of Environmental Citizenship embodies behaviour – an actively involved citizen who exercises his/her environmental rights and obligations in the private and public spheres. Education for Environmental Citizenship implies behavioural change; its goal is to facilitate an individual’s intellectual growth (cognitive domain) and emotional capacity (affective domain) that may lead to a critical and actively engaged individual. Human behaviour is overwhelmingly sophisticated, and what shapes pro-environmental behaviour is complex and context specific. Furthermore, empirical research indicates a discrepancy between possessing environmental knowledge and environmentally supportive attitudes and behaving pro-environmentally. The point of departure of this chapter is that the social and psychological study of behaviour has much to inform the study of environmental behaviour and, deriving from this, to inform regarding the type of education towards behaviour/action in the goal of sustainable socioecological transformation. The chapter focuses on internal (psychosocial) factors. It presents selected models regarding factors influencing behavioural decisions that are acknowledged as influential theoretical frameworks for investigating pro-environmental behaviour, as well as various theories that inform these models. These are categorised into knowledge-based models; attitude-, value- and norm-oriented models; skills, self-efficacy and situational factors; and new approaches to environmental behaviour models. The chapter concludes with suggestions for Education for Environmental Citizenship deriving from the various models.

Pleasure is the profit - The adoption of solar PV systems by households in Finland

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Determinants of Different Types of Positive Environmental Behaviors: An Analysis of Public and Private Sphere Actions

“…Like in many previous questionnaire studies, self-reported past PEBs served as a dependent variable rather than a predictor of PEBs in this research. Accordingly, a review on the role of past behavior and formation of habits is omitted here as corresponding information is provided elsewhere [100].…”

Pro-Environmental and Pro-Social Engagement in Sustainable Consumption: Exploratory Study

“…Researchers employ various theories and models to define consumers' sustainable behavior [28]. Nonetheless, Kollmuss and Agyeman [47] have suggested that, due to its complexity, the question of what forms environmentally friendly behavior is impossible to visualize using a single system or framework, as it might be too complicated or lose its applicability or meaning.…”

“…Collective wellbeing-oriented individuals prioritize group goals over personal ones, and are more inclined to collaborate and engage in sustainable consumption, such as waste sorting. Janmaimool and Denpaiboon [27], Goldman et al [28] and Wang, Wang, Li and Yang [29] have analyzed the groups of factors determining pro-environmental engagement in sustainable consumption. Kadic-Maglajlic et al [11] provides substantiation for the influence of consumer's self-identity and values on pro-environmental and pro-social engagement in sustainable consumption.…”