Effects of Curriculum on Environmental Attitudes: A Comparative Analysis of Environmental and Non-Environmental Disciplines

Abstract

To satisfy their ever-increasing needs, humans are constantly exerting excessive pressure upon the environment, while now more than ever, the adoption of new development practices to halt environmental degradation is becoming necessary. Graduates from all disciplines should have environmental awareness, because their decisions as future professionals may affect the environment. If, however, we assume that environmental science graduates possess environmental knowledge, it is worth investigating whether this knowledge affects their environmental attitudes. Hence, the aim of this study is to compare the environmental attitudes of students attending environmental and non-environmental studies. To this end, a comparative study on environmental attitudes was conducted between students majoring in forestry and students majoring in literature studies at one of the largest universities in Greece. That is, the environmental attitudes of students whose discipline was closely related to the environment were compared to the attitudes of students whose discipline was unrelated to the environment. The results showed that students from both disciplines had positive environmental attitudes, but forestry students exhibited a discernibly higher level of environmental awareness, which can be ascribed to their participation in environmentally relevant courses. The insights gains from this study could be particularly useful to education policymakers and curriculum practitioners, since they provide evidence for the potential of curriculum content to shape pro-environmental attitudes.

ICT-Enabled Education for Sustainability Justice in South East Asian Universities

“…The results revealed that students belonging to environment-related subjects such as biology, were more favorable in their sustainability justice attitudes. These results have been substantiated by previous research [30]. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the subjects for critical reflective practices (p = 0.067) and transformative teaching beliefs (p = 0.41).…”

“…In terms of academic disciplines and school subjects, the level of environmental attitude was higher in disciplines such as physical sciences and biological sciences rather than in humanities [29]. Another attitudinal study [30] revealed significant differences between students in forestry and students in literature studies showing that students whose discipline was closely related to nature revealed higher levels of environmental attitudes. Diverse academic disciplines exhibit different levels of concern and express different beliefs on issues and attitudes related to environmental sustainability [31].…”

Features of the development of ecological education and upbringing in the Republic of Armenia

“…It has previously been assumed that knowledge drives behavior and acts as its precursor, but subsequently this notion has attracted strong criticism. In other words, although it cannot be denied that knowledge is an important aspect of efforts to raise environmental awareness, it does not always translate into environmentally responsible behaviors [12].…”