Environmental Attitudes and Recycling Behaviour in Primary School Age: The Role of School and Parents

Dovilė Šorytė,Vilmantė Pakalniškienė

doi:10.15388/psichol.2021.30

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between environmental attitudes and recycling behaviour in primary school age, and to evaluate the role that school and parents play in the prediction of children’s attitudes and behaviour. Primary school pupils aged 8–11 years (n = 116), their parents and their class teachers participated in the study. During the structured face-to-face interviews, children answered questions about their recycling behaviour and environmental attitudes (i.e. eco-affinity and eco-awareness). Parents provided answers on their recycling behaviour, verbal modelling of the behaviour, incentives used when a child recycles waste, and environmental attitudes, while class teachers provided information about the recycling in children’s school. Structural equation models were tested with a purpose to evaluate the role of different independent variables, i.e. only school, only parental factors, or both, when predicting child recycling behaviour. Results of the study showed that children’s environmental attitudes had no significant links to their recycling behaviour. The only factor that appeared to be significant in the prediction of child behaviour was parental recycling behaviour. Furthermore, recycling in schools predicted pupils’ eco-awareness. Based on the study findings, it would be worthwhile to promote more practical training of pro-environmental behaviour, and to strengthen children’s eco-affinity.

Highlights

Otto et al (2019) showed that environmental attitudes and behaviours increase from the age of 7 to 10; thereby, middle childhood or primary school age is important for the formation of pro-environmentalism in children
Child recycling behaviour correlated with the respective parental behaviour (r = .49, p < .001), verbal modelling of the behaviour (r = .33, p = .001) and incentives used by the parents (r = .24, p = .019), but did not relate with children’s eco-affinity (r = .11, p = .440) or their eco-awareness (r = .01, p = .959)
Considering that no significant correlations were found between environmental attitudes of parents and other study variables, parental attitudes were removed from the further analysis

Summary

Introduction

Šiuo tyrimu siekta ištirti aplinkosauginių vaiko nuostatų ir atliekų rūšiavimo elgesio sąsajas pradiniame mokykliniame amžiuje bei įvertinti mokyklos ir tėvų vaidmenį prognozuojant šias vaikų nuostatas ir elgesį. Tėvai pateikė atsakymus apie savo rūšiavimo elgesį, žodinį šio elgesio modeliavimą šeimoje, taikomus paskatinimus, kai vaikas rūšiuoja, ir aplinkosaugines nuostatas, o klasių auklėtojos – informaciją apie atliekų rūšiavimą mokykloje, kurioje vaikas mokosi. Moksleivių elgesį nuspėjo tik atitinkamas tėvų elgesys, o rūšiavimas mokyklose prognozavo kognityviąją vaikų nuostatą. Middle childhood is characterized by significant cognitive changes that allow children to think more flexibly than in preschool years (Huston & Ripke, 2009) They can reason logically about concrete information (Piaget, 1963) and take the perspectives of others (Eccles, 1999; Piaget & Inhelder, 1969). We could expect stronger relationships between environmental attitudes and behaviours of children and their parents when pupils are at least 9 years old and in case of a more visible pro-environmental behaviour

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Conclusion