Sociocultural Variables That Impact High School Students’ Perceptions of Native Fauna: a Study on the Species Component of the Biodiversity Concept

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of school sector (private versus state schools) and student gender on knowledge of native fauna. Our main objectives were (a) to describe the knowledge of high school students from the province of Cordoba, Argentina with respect to native animal species, (b) to determine if any exotic species (introduced or domestic) are considered native, and (c) to analyze the effects of school sector and gender on the students’ knowledge of the native fauna. In total, 321 students aged 15–18 from 14 urban schools (8 state and 6 private schools) were asked to write down ten animals native to Cordoba, Argentina, in a free-list questionnaire. Relative frequencies and Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) were used to analyze the categorized (animal names) and continuous answers (quantity of responses, number of native animals, etc.), with the 25 most frequently mentioned species showing a predominance of native ones, of which “Puma” (Puma concolor) and “Andean condor” (Vultur gryphus) were the most prominent. An overrepresentation of mammalian species compared to other classes of chordates was also found, with high school students mentioning native and domestic species higher on the free-list. Using GLMM, we found that school sector had a significant effect on the number of native animals mentioned at both national and local levels, and on domestic and mixed species. Finally, male students mentioned more species and more native animals than their female counterparts. These findings were interpreted and discussed in light of sociocultural and traditional ecological knowledge theories, from which several implications arose related to research and practice.