Non-anthropocentric Reasoning in Children: Its incidence when they are confronted with ecological dilemmas

Almeida, António; Vasconcelos, Clara; Strecht-Ribeiro, Orlando; Torres, José Manuel Framiñán

doi:10.1080/09500693.2011.608387

Cited by 24 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…However, these values were not shared by the Brazilian students who preferred to use the animal “fawn” (a symbol for homosexuality in Brazilian culture) for the communication of sexual orientation; such preference suggests a symbolic value of animals (i.e., a cultural tendency to develop symbolic relations with animals). Such finding is consistent with those of previous studies showing that cultural background and personal value can have a profound impact on reasoning about socioscientific issues involving animals as varied as squirrels (Evagorou et al, in press), wolves (Jorde & Mork, 2007), bears (Simonneaux & Simonneaux, 2009), snakes (Wojnowski, 2008), seals, hedgehogs, and foxes (Almeida, Vasconcelos, Strecht‐Ribeiro & Torres, in press). As such, this finding reinforces the need for environmental educators to carefully consider sociocientific curricula and instruction in light of students' values of animals, particularly social representations (Lopez‐Facal & Jiménez‐Aleixandre, 2009; Simonneaux & Simonneaux, 2009) and cultural images (Melson, 2001) of animals to which children are exposed.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Environmental argumentation as sociocultural activity

2012

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While environmental argumentation has recently received much attention from science educators, little consideration has been given to how personal identities and social relationships can either support or constrain student argumentation. This study attends to this issue by examining environmental argumentation as a sociocultural activity (how students implicitly create identities and relationships through environmental warrants and claims). By integrating rhetorical and sociocultural analysis of oral discourse, we examine argumentation about environmental dilemmas (problematic scenarios involving animals and the environment). Although students set forth a variety of warrants (social, economic, contextual, biocentric, and expertise‐based), the dilemmas led to distinct forms of argumentation. One dilemma involving a pet iguana fostered non‐adversarial argumentation wherein students identified themselves as animal lovers and cooperative discussants. By contrast, the other two dilemmas (the hypothetical encounter with a fawn in the woods and the observation of classroom lights being unnecessarily left on) led to the unexpected emergence of sexual identities, combative disagreement, and conflict resolution on social rather than rational grounds. The main implication of this study is that it highlights the need for educators to pay closer attention to specific textual elements in the design of environmental dilemmas (types of prompts used, decision‐makers' identities, statements of intentionality and outcome, moral complexity, values of nature, and social representation or cultural images of animals) in order to foster an appropriate and productive sociocultural classroom context for rational and reasoned environmental argumentation to take place without the constraints of unexpected social complications. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 869–897, 2012

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Environmental argumentation as sociocultural activity

2012

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“…Some imagine that different species collaborate, talking freely and helping each other when in need (Leach et al, 1992). Anthropocentric reasoning is common with these younger children who Early understandings of simple food chains 4 believe that wild animals cannot exist without people to feed and look after them (Almeida, Vasconcelos, Strecht-Ribeiro, & Torres, 2013;Demetriou, Korfiatis, & Constantinou, 2009;Leach et al, 1992). Similarly, Einsen and Stavy (1992) describe how plants are thought by some secondary-aged students to be dependent on humans, instead of humans relying on plants for food, oxygen, etc.…”

Section: Previous Research On Children's Concepts Of Food Chainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early understandings of simple food chains: A learning progression for the preschool years

Allen

2017

International Journal of Science Education

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Aspects of preschoolers' ecological understandings were explored in a cross-age, quantitative study that utilised a sample of seventy-five 3-5 year-old children. Specifically, their concepts of feeding relationships were determined by presenting physical models of three-step food chains during structured interviews. A majority of children, particularly 5 year-olds, were capable of grasping concepts inherent in food chain topics that are scheduled to appear later in their schooling. In part, age differences in children's reasoning can be accounted for by attentional theory based on evolutionary predator avoidance adaptations, which tended to become significant at 5 years. Data suggest that these aspects of preschool ecological education could be increased in sophistication, thus accelerating children's understandings about the environment beyond what is currently the case.

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“…The children choosing the statement "The best way to protect the environment is for its own sake, so that plants and animals can live without any disturbance" can be classified as having an ecologistic and moralistic attitude. However, according to some studies, this type of value gradually diminishes overtime amongst children and anthropocentric reasoning starts to take its place (Amerigo et al, 2007;Almeida et al, 2013). Additionally, studies by Kahn (1997;1998) and Kahn & Lourenco (2002) have tried to evaluate children's attitudes towards environmental issues in different regions of the world, with results indicating that they had less ecocentric views.…”

Section: Different Outlooks On Environmental Protection (Ecocentric Vmentioning

confidence: 99%