Environmental concern among Chinese youth: the roles of knowledge and cultural bias

Cultural Impacts on the Environmental Attitudes of Early Childhood Teachers: A Mixed-Method Study

“…According to the interview transcripts, in-service early childhood teachers prefer more authority openness to ful ll their duties in kindergartens concerning nature-based classes and participate in decision-making of certain issues with less emphasis on power distance. In this vein, more authority openness rather than power distance can contribute to more positive attitudes on environmental conservation, which is not congruent with the study of Yuan et al (2022) that hierarchical power can play a key role to cultivate positive environmental attitudes. Nevertheless, in-service early childhood teachers also attach importance to the power of principals to help themselves establish links to natural environments because they seldom learn this eld before and need more support and practices in the integration of nature into early childhood education.…”

“…The ndings show the differences between eastern and western culture. Similarly, other researchers (Yuan et al, 2022) summarize that the culture of egalitarianism concerns environments most, followed by hierarchy, while those dominated by individualism show the lowest level. Thus, cultural factors in uencing the environmental attitudes of early childhood teachers should attach great importance to the relationships between different people, including the power and authority of principals and the collective interests of colleagues (Wang & Ho, 2020).…”

“…Fourth, early childhood teachers work with young children every day. Some of their characteristics such as empathy and altruism for young children may help cultivate their senses of environmental concern (Yuan et al, 2022). However, this aspect requires further studies.…”

“…This can be supported by the studies of Kim & Dreamson (2020) and Yuan et al (2022) that the culture of collectivism expresses more concerns on environmental issues because people who concern others with empathy and altruism may easily place high regard on ecological lives on the planet. The ndings can provide some references for western contexts where individualism is prioritized in order to achieve a harmonious relationship between nature and human beings on the earth.…”

“…Consequently, their environmental attitudes may be negatively in uenced even if they may love nature due to their 'biophilia' (Kahn et al, 2018). Some researchers emphasize the environmental attitudes of pre-service kindergarten teachers in universities under the western contexts ( Yuan et al, 2022) under the eastern contexts. However, cultural factors are often overlooked and priority is not given to in-service early childhood teachers as they would show a more negative environmental attitude than that of pre-service ones in some aspects (Kandir et al, 2012).…”