Abstract
This study explores the sociocultural dimensions of environmental education by focusing on the ways in which middle-class parents incorporate their concern for the environment into everyday practices. Drawing on a set of data collected through semi-structured interviews with 13 parents, this study finds that despite environmental awareness and knowledge, an ambiguous disposition prevails. Climate change, although identified as a grave problem, is rarely a priority in educational decision-making processes, and the strategies implemented to address environmental issues dwell mainly on consumption and recycling. The parents’ environmental practices are modestly toned down as a minimal but conscious, embodied contribution, affording them a spectrum of conflicting affective engagements. As such, the norms dominated by ambiguity help sustain the status quo with some adjustments to the middle-class lifestyle being made in the late capitalist setting. These findings suggest that for environmental education to eventually foster environmental action, the wider sociocultural context in which the family as a site of contesting values and practices is situated needs to be taken into consideration.
Published Version
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