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• To shape students’ values and attitudes, experience and emotion should be considered as inherent components of Education for Environmental Citizenship programmes. This also calls for teaching students how to handle their emotions and
reflect their feelings.
• Following the Experiential Processing Theory, Education for Environmental
Citizenship should implement elements of experiential learning. Education for
Environmental Citizenship should develop affective relationship with one’s local
environment (urban and rural ecosystems and local nature), provide more
detailed and accurate information on regional and global environmental processes and issues and develop imagery that is consistent with scientific knowledge and is best suited to the cultural contexts and individual mental models.
Following Experiential Processing Theory, Education for Environmental
Citizenship should provide positive experiences of diverse environmental issues
and relevant environmental behaviours, including private (e.g. recycling, green
consumption) and public-sphere behaviours (e.g. writing a letter to the local
council, participating in an environmental campaign).
• Following the Behavioural Spillover Theory, Education for Environmental
Citizenship should foster catalytic behaviours – those behaviours that are powerful changers of environmental identity and therefore infuse lifestyle changes
including changes across various types of environmental behaviours. The greatest challenge is to identify these catalytic behaviours and embed them into the
educational programmes. These might be context specific. For example, recycling may be a powerful case in many schools since it may further foster resourcesaving behaviours. But caring for homeless dogs may be the most powerful case
in another school, leading to fostering animal welfare activism and constraining
consumption of some goods (related to harming animals and reducing their
welfare).
• Following the Hysteresis Effect Thesis, (1) it points out that developing
Environmental Citizenship is a long-term and continuous process. Student
assessments at schools should focus on measuring efforts and personal engagement, rather than measuring results (i.e. outcomes, as understood in its many
dimensions and types). This is because there is a lag between the educational
input and the output (presence of Environmental Citizenship within the mental
structures and lifestyles of the pupils). (2) Hysteresis Effect also points to the
influences of general culture and families. Thus, Education for Environmental
Citizenship should encourage community-based projects that are directed at
broader attitudinal changes and behavioural shifts within society.
The apparent differences in levels of engagement with environmental behaviours
among European countries suggest that Education for Environmental Citizenship
should take into account the context in which it is applied. The starting positions are
diverse, and educational programmes should therefore be adapted to national
contexts.
8 Education for Environmental Citizenship and Responsible Environmental Behaviour
• To shape students’ values and attitudes, experience and emotion should be considered as inherent components of Education for Environmental Citizenship programmes. This also calls for teaching students how to handle their emotions and
reflect their feelings.
• Following the Experiential Processing Theory, Education for Environmental
Citizenship should implement elements of experiential learning. Education for
Environmental Citizenship should develop affective relationship with one’s local
environment (urban and rural ecosystems and local nature), provide more
detailed and accurate information on regional and global environmental processes and issues and develop imagery that is consistent with scientific knowledge and is best suited to the cultural contexts and individual mental models.
Following Experiential Processing Theory, Education for Environmental
Citizenship should provide positive experiences of diverse environmental issues
and relevant environmental behaviours, including private (e.g. recycling, green
consumption) and public-sphere behaviours (e.g. writing a letter to the local
council, participating in an environmental campaign).
• Following the Behavioural Spillover Theory, Education for Environmental
Citizenship should foster catalytic behaviours – those behaviours that are powerful changers of environmental identity and therefore infuse lifestyle changes
including changes across various types of environmental behaviours. The greatest challenge is to identify these catalytic behaviours and embed them into the
educational programmes. These might be context specific. For example, recycling may be a powerful case in many schools since it may further foster resourcesaving behaviours. But caring for homeless dogs may be the most powerful case
in another school, leading to fostering animal welfare activism and constraining
consumption of some goods (related to harming animals and reducing their
welfare).
• Following the Hysteresis Effect Thesis, (1) it points out that developing
Environmental Citizenship is a long-term and continuous process. Student
assessments at schools should focus on measuring efforts and personal engagement, rather than measuring results (i.e. outcomes, as understood in its many
dimensions and types). This is because there is a lag between the educational
input and the output (presence of Environmental Citizenship within the mental
structures and lifestyles of the pupils). (2) Hysteresis Effect also points to the
influences of general culture and families. Thus, Education for Environmental
Citizenship should encourage community-based projects that are directed at
broader attitudinal changes and behavioural shifts within society.
The apparent differences in levels of engagement with environmental behaviours
among European countries suggest that Education for Environmental Citizenship
should take into account the context in which it is applied. The starting positions are
diverse, and educational programmes should therefore be adapted to national
contexts.
8 Education for Environmental Citizenship and Responsible Environmental Behaviour