David Yencken

If It Doesn't Directly Affect You, You Don't Think About It’: a qualitative study of young people's environmental attitudes in two Australian cities

SUMMARY This article presents a range of findbigs from a qualitative study of the environmental attitudes of young people across their final 2 years of secondary school in the two Australian cities of Melbourne and Brisbane. Focus groups comprising the same 16‐ to 17‐year‐old students in 12 schools were interviewed twice, 12 months apart. Several minor differences were found in the attitudes of students between the two cities, but these pale alongside the common, indeed, overwhelming feelings of environmental concern mixed with frustration, cynicism and action paralysis that were reported. The ambivalence towards the environment that results, together with the individualistic frameworks for explaining environmental issues that were displayed, point to areas for renewed curriculum attention in secondary schools and directions for future research.

Environment, education, and society in the Asia-Pacific: Local traditions and global discourses

Preface Rupert Maclean, UNESCO Office for Asia and the Pacific Introduction David Yencken, John Fien and Helen Sykes 1. Attitudes to nature in the East and West David Yencken 2. The research David Yencken, John Fien and Helen Sykes 3. One country two perspectives: South China Philip Stimpson 4. Oya-Shima-Kuni: Japan Brendan Barrett, Osamu Abe, Eiichiro Harako and Satoshi Ichikawa 5. Living traditions: India M.J. Ravindranath and Usha Iyer-Raniga 6. Unity and Diversity: Southeast Asia Lily Kong with Irene Teh-Cheong Poh Ai, Panji Tisna, Purisima Remorin, Rapeepun Suwannatachote and Wisat Lee 7. Songlines and the Gondwanan inheritance: Australia David Yencken and John Fien 8. Voices from the South-West Pacific John Fien with Gewa Au, Paul Keown, Premila Kumar and Sereana Takivakatini 9. Environmental attitudes, knowledge and behaviour of young people in the Asia-Pacific region Helen Sykes, David Yencken, John Fien and Florence Choo 10. Young people and the environment: the implications for environmentalism David Yencken 11. Listening to the voices of youth: Implications for educational reform John Fien

Young People and the Environment in Australia: Beliefs, Knowledge, Commitment and Educational Implications.

There is a paucity of research in Australia on the nature of young peoples attitudes, knowledge and actions. This paper reports on the findings from one such study of Australian high school students. The research was based on a survey of 5688 students from Melbourne and Brisbane. These young people identified protection of the environment as the most important problem In Australia and strongly supported the belief systems characteristic of an ‘environmental paradigm’. Despite this, the majority displayed relatively low levels of knowledge of key environmental concepts, and were involved in little environmental action-taking outside of household activities. Differences are reported between: students from Melbourne and Brisbane; girls and boys; high performing and general schools; and teachers and students. The paper concludes with a discussion of some implications for environmental education in Australia.

Governance for Sustainability

Environmental policies and responses are strongly influenced by a government’s knowledge and understanding of environmental problems, its assessment of their severity, the expert opinions available to it on the size of the response needed, its understanding of the driving forces leading to environmental deterioration and the influence of prevailing theories and paradigms. Environmental policy cannot furthermore exist in a policy vacuum. Environmental goals may or may not be strongly weighted compared to other societal goals especially economic goals. All these influences have major bearing on the approach taken by governments to environmental policy.

Environment, Education and Society in the Asia Pacific: Three Key Questions

This paper is a response to three issues raised by Bill Marsden (2001) in the second part of his review of our recent book, Environment, Education and Society in the Asia Pacific: Local traditions and Global Discourses (Yencken, Fien and Sykes, 2000). The book reported on a study of youth environmentalism across the region as displayed in the young peoples levels of awareness, knowledge, worldviews, aspirations, concerns, behaviours and actions. The study used a portfolio of cultural and historical analysis, survey and focus group methods to explain not just the levels, patterns or state of youth environmentalism but also to trace the influences of culture, politics, history, the media, education and experiences of the environment on young people. The book was divided into two major secions. The chapters in the first part were written by researchers from each of the countries involved. The second part concluded the book with a chapter summarising the data on youth environmentalism across the region and a final chapter that identified the educational implications of the findings. Marsdens concerns seem to relate to this second part of the chapter. Thus, this response also addresses the second part of the book and the review.