More is not always better: A study of country-level factors associated with adolescents’ environmental attitudes using a multilevel analysis of PISA 2006

Abstract

In recent decades, environmental problems have rapidly worsened to become a planetary crisis, and mounting scientific evidence supports that this crisis is anthropogenic. With the growing concern over the anthropogenic ecological crisis, there has been more attention to the factors influencing people’s pro-environmental attitudes. However, limited research on the adolescent population exists, and country-level factors were rarely explored with mixed findings. This study examines whether and how three country-level factors of national consumption, national average environmental knowledge, and national income level significantly impact students’ environmental attitudes, using multilevel modeling methods. The analysis results show that adolescents’ environmental attitudes are negatively related to the national consumption and environmental knowledge level after controlling for important individual-level factors while having no significant relationship with the national income level. This study concludes with a discussion on the future direction of environmental education and studies.

Pro-environmental behavior, personality and emotional intelligence in adolescents: a systematic review

“…The study of adolescents’ PEB is particularly important for the future of environmental protection ( Balundė et al, 2020 ), as the behaviors of young people are key indicators of long-term changes in both environmental consciousness and action ( Wray-Lake et al, 2010 ; Jovanović et al, 2016 ; Koessler et al, 2022 ). However, the nature of adolescents’ PEB is under-investigated ( Palupi and Sawitri, 2018 ; Lee et al, 2020 ; Gong and Zheng, 2021 ).…”