Elvan Sahin

An investigation on value orientations, attitudes and concern towards the environment: the case of Turkish elementary school students

Environmental attitudes depend on the relative importance that individuals attach to themselves, other people, or all living things. These distinct bases have been found to predict environmental concern, and may act as statistically significant determinants of pro-environmental behaviours. We claim that examining the complex nature of value orientations and concern levels among elementary school students as well as the interrelationships between these attributes could guide researchers and educators in Turkey. This study aimed (1) to explore Turkish elementary students’ ecocentric and anthropocentric attitudes, and environmental apathy; (2) to investigate their egoistic, altruistic and biospheric value orientations as well as their environmental concerns; (3) to examine relationships among environment-related attributes and (4) to determine the role of gender on these attributes. Participants seemed to be highly concerned and held favourable ecocentric attitudes. Furthermore, students with higher levels of anthropocentric attitudes tended to exhibit higher levels of environmental apathy, and those expressing biospheric concerns held lower levels of egoistic concerns. The findings suggest that girls were significantly more concerned about environmental problems and tended to value nature more for its own sake than boys.

Message in a bottle: what shapes university students’ understanding of sustainability?

ABSTRACT Our research question concerned how life stories shape university students’ understanding of the sustainable use of natural resources. We searched for an answer for this question by listening to the life stories of nine students from a public university in Turkey. The difference between this research and former work is that we were not concerned with professionals rather we interviewed the university students. While interviewing students, we only asked them to think about their life experience so far and tell us what shaped their thinking on sustainability. The evaluations of the stories displayed that the people, time, and places were different, but the outcomes of the stories were not. The students reflected the role of their family, especially their mothers’ tendency for the sustainable use of natural resources in shaping their own attitudes and behaviors toward sustainability.

Delving into Key Dimensions of ESD through Analyses of a Middle School Science Textbook.

Abstract Uncertainties and debates regarding the term of sustainable development are still going on, and similarly, the notion of education for sustainable development (ESD) is open to debate. There has been an attempt to make the concept of ESD evident, which is quite challenging. Palmer (1998) stated the appropriateness of ESD within environmental education and presented ESD as a new trend for teaching and learning about the environment. In line with these interpretation, Sauvé (2002) pointed out that ESD seems to emerge as a current issue within environmental education. Contrary to these claims, some researchers do not interpret ESD as an evolution within environmental education. According to Sterling (2001), ESD can be recognized as sustainable education in which there is a movement toward the renewal of education systems and institutions ‘doing better things’ and ‘seeing things differently’. Apart from those qualitatively different interpretations of ESD, in 1998 the Council for Environmental Education published a strategy report (CEE, 1998) which is particularly significant for teachers. This report specified seven key dimensions regarding ESD, namely: interdependence; citizenship and stewardship; needs and rights of future generations; diversity; quality of life, equity and justice; sustainable change; and uncertainty and precaution in action. This study could provide an analysis of Turkish middle school science textbooks with respect to these key dimensions on ESD. Current evidences showed that these textbooks do not refer to the dimensions of sustainable development sufficiently.

Turkish pre-service science teachers' awareness, beliefs, values, and behaviours pertinent to climate change

ABSTRACT This study examined Turkish pre-service science teachers’ awareness, uncertainty beliefs, values, and behaviours pertinent to climate change. It aimed to determine significant predictors of climate change-related behaviours and uncertainty beliefs about the reality of climate change. A Turkish-adapted survey was administered to 1277 pre-service science teachers from different geographical regions of Turkey. While majority of the respondents were certain that climate change is happening, there were also indicators of uncertainties in such belief. Pre-service teachers who value nature for its own sake tended to show favourable behaviours to mitigating climate change. Disinterest in and scepticism about the reality of climate change did not emerge as significant determinants of climate change-related behaviours.