Abstract
The human-centric nature of environmental thinking is a highly successful adaptation, which has biological, historical, cultural origins. The dichotomy of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism are what ultimately determine ecological attitudes. This nationally representative study presents how students in Hungarian environmental education bachelor programs view the human’s taxonomic position in the world (hierarchies, kinship), throughout evolution (determining possible directions, distancing from other organisms), the role of human power, and our rights of intervention in the environment. It shows what kind of knowledge students arrive with from public education, how they think about handling confl icts, and what impact their acquired knowledge during university years has on their environmental attitudes. It was found that at least two-thirds of students evaluated natural environmental processes, problemsand their consequences with anthropocentric preferences – in contrast to scientifi cally accepted theses.
Highlights
Environmental thinking is a deÞning element of our everyday lives, our decisions and actions
The primary intention of public policy and related measures is typically to improve people’s everyday lives, but often this leads to ignorance towards the interests of ecological sustainability, the safety requirements of naturally occurring processes
The current public perception is that the role of environmental education would be to enlighten and activate environmentally conscious citizens who have Journal of Education Culture and Society No 1_2014 a broadview and responsible thinking about current and future climate issues
Summary
Environmental thinking is a deÞning element of our everyday lives, our decisions and actions. Szántó (1994) describes four types of environmental worldview as ’practical approach’; ’mild ecocentric world view’; ’stronger ecocentric world view’ and ’technical optimism’. In Hungary, the most common view is ’practical approach’ and the least prevalent is ’stronger ecocentric world view’ The former group is only interested in solving speciÞc problems, while the latter emphasizes the preciousness of nature. Kellert (1976) categorizes the American society’s environmental thinking on the basis of other criteria He deÞnes ’attitude types’ and the members of groups in his system relate to animals as ’naturalists’, ’ecologists’, ’humanists’, ’moralists’, ’scientists’, ’aesthetics’, ’utilitarians’, ’doministics’ and ’negativistic people’ depending on the aim what orients them. This research tries to discuss the view that the negative environmental attitudes are just mindsets when people do not care about environment or are not interested in the problems of environment (passivity). We can Þnd here the traces of anthropocentric environmental thinking and the contradictions with scientiÞc thinking
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