Exploratory Study of Textile Undergraduates’ Knowledge and Perception towards Eco-Friendly Clothing in Bangladesh

Abstract

Environmentalism leads to the concept of eco-friendly clothing (EFC) and its popularity is advancing all over the world. In-depth knowledge acquisition regarding EFC has become a fundamental requirement for Bangladeshi Textile undergraduates as they are the future professionals in the EFC sector. To ascertain the knowledge level and perception of the Bangladeshi textile undergraduates regarding EFC was the aim of this study. In this exploratory study, a self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data through purposive sampling from the students enrolled into the Bangladesh undergraduate Textile Engineering programme. The respondents were 282 students of the fourth year of different universities located in Dhaka city. Descriptive statistics were used to represent the findings of the research. The results showed that 82.3% of the respondents were informed about EFC, 35.8% were knowledgeable regarding EFC raw materials and 53.02% were cognisant about the production process. 89.4% of the respondents expected one particular course on EFC in curriculum and 94% wanted to contribute towards EFC in the future. The study revealed that undergraduates have a knowledge gap regarding EFC, while their willingness to learn and contribute is very optimistic. The findings suggested that the evaluation and modification of the curriculum for EFC and incorporation of EFC courses can lessen this salient gap.

Developing textile sustainability education in the curriculum: pedagogical approaches to material innovation in fashion

“…Most current fashion and apparel products are dependent on established textiles (e.g. synthetics such as polyester, nylon and elastane, or naturals such as wool, cotton and silk) and there is a fundamental need to understand the properties of the materials used to effectively design and develop products, which is already addressed to some degree in the secondary school and undergraduate higher education (HE) curriculum (Haq & Ite, 2022 ; Hiller Connell & and Kozar, 2012 ; Landgren & Pasricha, 2011 ). However, in recent years there have been several research studies focussing on developing textiles from alternative sources such as mycelium, food waste and bacteria (Wood, 2019 ) in an attempt to address the sustainability agenda.…”