Are geography students good “environmental citizens?” A comparison between year of study and over time

Abstract

Are geography students good “environmental citizens?” Has this improved over time with increasing emphasis on sustainability within higher education? This paper compares environmental attitudes and behaviours of geography students at different stages of their degree and over a seven-year period. The findings show that although geography students have an interest in environmental issues and feel a responsibility to educate others, this does not necessarily lead to pro-environmental behaviours, particularly more indirect behaviours. Environmental citizenship attributes in first year geography students show little change over seven years, other than where behaviours have been influenced by changes to the infrastructure around them.

Keywords::

• environmental citizenship
• education for sustainable development
• environmental attitudes
• environmental behaviours
• university infrastructure

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. The authors thank the students who took part in the study and Dr Beth Greenhough for significant earlier work in this project. Thanks is also given to the two anonymous reviewers.