“I have a little, little, little footprint on the world” and “I’m not political”: feelings of low self-efficacy and the effect of identity on environmental behaviour in educators

Abstract

Environmental educators in both formal and informal settings work to develop students’ environmental literacy, with the goal of developing adult citizens who care about the environment and are knowledgeable and prepared to engage in behaviours to address environmental issues. Yet little attention has been paid to educator environmental literacy. Here we report the findings from an interview study of formal educators from K-12 settings and informal educators from out-of-school settings. Overall, educators favoured personal-level behaviours. In addition, some educators reported poor environmental self-efficacy for three main reasons: the scale of the problem, other negative environmental behaviour that offsets positive behaviour, and the need for system-level behaviour Educators rarely engaged in system-level behaviour due to distrust of the system, inexperience, and the rejection of political or activist identity.