Louise Chawla

Life Paths Into Effective Environmental Action

Abstract Structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with 30 environmentalists in Kentucky and 26 in Norway (35 men, 21 women) who represented a broad range of issues, from wilderness protection to urban planning, to determine the sources of their environmental commitment. Experiences of natural areas, family influences, organizations, negative experiences, and education were mentioned most often. People were also asked about the period in life when significant experiences occurred, and on this basis, a typical life path of predominant sources of commitment at different ages was constructed. Respondents also recommended strategies for effective environmental action.

Significant Life Experiences Revisited: a review of research on sources of environmental sensitivity

Summary Beginning with the study of significant life experiences initiated by Tanner, this article reviews a growing body of related research in the form of surveys, interviews, and questionnaires that explore peoples accounts of the sources of their environmental interest, concern, and action. The questions, methods, and results of studies in this field are closely compared. In conclusion, the article notes that the experiences that people describe can be understood as exchanges between the ‘outer environment’ of the physical and social world and the ‘inner environment’ of peoples own interests, aptitudes, and temperament, and that more attention needs to be paid to the influence of this ‘inner environment’ of individual differences.

Childhood Place Attachments

There is a long history of cultural assumptions regarding children’s special affinity or bond for certain places, much of it antedating modern psychology. Within psychology, the subject is more ambiguous. The term attachment evokes a long history of theory and research that has measured the degree to which young children seek to keep a primary caretaker in sight and hearing, showing distress at separation and joy at reunion not merely for the sake of the satisfaction of physical needs but for the value of her presence (Maccoby & Masters, 1970; Sears, 1972). Much of this work has been inspired by the psychoanalytic theory of object relations. A naive reader might suppose that this literature explores people’s relations with objects—with things—which must involve things in their places; but a reader schooled in psychological jargon knows that in this case “object” almost invariably means “mother.” Yet the confusion is not merely naive, as object relations theorists have usually assumed that a child’s feelings for places and things develop as an extension of its relations with its mother. As a result, it has not been clear whether place attachments should be considered merely secondary effects of social attachments, or whether they have an independent existence.

Significant Life Experiences Revisited: A Review of Research on Sources of Environmental Sensitivity

Abstract Environmental sensitivity, an important variable in environmental awareness and in the predisposition to take responsible environmental action, has been the subject of a growing body of qualitative research, in which sensitivity is associated with particular kinds of significant life experiences. Studies of significant life experiences of environmental educators and other environmental professionals are reviewed, from original pioneering work through many open-ended surveys, questionnaires, and interview studies that have built on this tradition. Various definitions of the term environmental sensitivity are explored. The strengths and weaknesses of this research tradition are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.

Research Methods to Investigate Significant Life Experiences: review and recommendations

Summary This article reviews different research approaches to understanding the significant experiences that influence peoples environmental concern and behavior, with an emphasis on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of existing studies. It also reviews relevant findings regarding the validity of autobiographical memory, as memory is the medium which selects and interprets the significant events reported to researchers. The review notes promising new directions in recent studies, but makes several concrete suggestions regarding how researchers in this field can refine existing methods and broaden their approaches.

Children and their Environments: Children as agents in sustainable development: the ecology of competence

The great challenge of the twenty-first century may well be achieving sustainable development – which is ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs’ (WCED, 1987: 8). Children stand at the heart of this definition in two respects. First, concern for future generations, which takes form in each new cohort of children, motivates development of this kind. Second, if practices consistent with sustainable development are to be carried forward through time, then children must be the bridge conveying their value and ways. For these reasons, many municipal governments and agencies that work with children are currently experimenting with approaches to integrate children into environmental planning. What is lacking in these efforts, however, is a coherent theoretical framework for investigating the question that these practical initiatives raise: what experiences prepare children to value and care for their local environment and join in community decision-making? Although there have been many surveys of young peoples environmental attitudes and knowledge, much less is known about environmental learning as children engage with their localities, or about how children learn to take collaborative action on behalf of the places where they live (Rickinson, 2001). Drawing on ideas in ecological psychology, we propose a framework for research on this topic. We submit that one impediment to advances on this front resides in dominant assumptions about the nature of perceiving and cognition.

Research methods to investigate significant life experiences: review and recommendations: Reprinted from Environmental Education Research (1998) 4(4), pp. 383–397

This article reviews different research approaches to understanding the significant experiences that influence people’s environmental concern and behaviour, with an emphasis on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of existing studies. It also reviews relevant findings regarding the validity of autobiographical memory, as memory is the medium which selects and interprets the significant events reported to researchers. The review notes promising new directions in recent studies, but makes several concrete suggestions regarding how researchers in this field can refine existing methods and broaden their approaches.

Putting Young Old Ideas into Action: The relevance of Growing Up in Cities to Local Agenda 21

Agenda 21, the Habitat Agenda and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child have brought new relevance to Growing Up in Cities, a project of participatory action-research for urban children and youth. The origins of the project in the 1970s under the leadership of the urban planner Kevin Lynch are described, along with a brief history of the projects revival. The results of the projects recent implementation in eight countries are summarised with an emphasis on childrens perspectives on environmental quality, as well as lessons learned regarding how children can be most effectively integrated into LA21 processes.

Rhetoric, reality and resilience: overcoming obstacles to young people’s participation in development

This paper describes the difficult relationships among those implementing an action research project with children in a low-income settlement in Bangalore (India), the distant and unresponsive bureaucracy of an international funding agency, and the authoritarian management of the NGO through whom its money was channelled. This case study highlights the difficulties that international agencies face in operationalizing the principles of grassroots participation that they officially endorse. The action research was one of several projects within the Growing up in Cities programme. It shows the difficult circumstances under which so many young people live, including six and seven-year-olds thrust into adult roles and lives cut short by disease and violence. But it also shows their astonishing resilience and energy, self-reliance and optimism. External agencies, from local governments and NGOs to international funders, need to work with children to understand what does (and what does not) work for them. This means recognizing that they are important actors in their own communities and that their insights, energy and creativity should be fostered and supported rather than ignored.

`Children in South Africa Can Make a Difference' An Assessment of `Growing Up in Cities' in Johannesburg

The article presents the evaluation of two Johannesburg sites of `Growing Up in Cities, a project that involves children in documenting and improving their urban environments, with respect to the effect of project participation. Participating children and their parents were surveyed or interviewed regarding the projects value and effect on the children. In addition, the children were measured on scales of self-esteem, locus of control and self-efficacy, and compared with control groups. The results of the evaluation are summarized, and claims about the value of childrens participation in community development are critically reviewed.