Barriers to enduring pro-environmental behaviour change among Chinese students returning home from the UK: a social practice perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the phenomenon of international student migration, as a potential site for pro-environmental behaviour change. It draws on qualitative focus group data collected from a sample of Chinese people who had studied in the UK and since returned to China. The findings show that living in the UK led to spillover of some pro-environmental behaviours, but most of these changes were not sustained upon return to China. Employing a framework from social practice, the findings show that the desire to ‘fit in’ with the social norms of a host country are powerful in creating change, without requiring normative engagement with sustainability. However, the findings also suggest that behavioural change will not endure after short-term migration without supportive social norms and where there are barriers to pro-environmental behaviours in the home country. The paper highlights what those specific barriers might be in contemporary China, with reference to cultural traditions of ‘mianzi’ and ‘guanxi’, government discourses which do not prioritise individual agency, and an absence of post-materialist values.

KEWORDS:

• China
• Behaviour Change
• Social Practice
• Migration
• Spillover

Acknowledgments

Prior to data collection, this research was approved by the Faculty of Social Science Research Ethics Committee at the University of Southampton. Sincere thanks go to all participants and gatekeepers for enabling the collection of data presented here, especially Shi Zhan, Kaiyang Lui, Christopher Shank, Kate Logan, Martin Sweeney, Zhi Lin, Luxia Wu, William Gray, William Shipton-Jiang and Xiayi Shipton-Jiang, and to Lee Davies for logistical support for the field-work, which was conducted entirely by train transport in order to reduce the project’s carbon footprint. I am also very grateful to Professor Pauline Leonard for feedback on early drafts of this paper, and to the journal editor and five anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments which also substantially improved it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data set

Data set can be accessed here http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/854064/.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. This paper employs a definition of sustainable consumption which, borrowing from the Brundtland Report’s definition of sustainable development, ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Pro-environmental behaviour is defined as that which seeks to minimize the negative impact of one’s actions on the natural and built world. Pro-environmental attitudes are understood as a combination of environmental awareness, knowledge and concern. (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/S010815/1].

Notes on contributors

Roger Tyers

Dr Roger Tyers is a Teaching Associate in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Southampton. His research interests are on behaviour change and public policy, especially regarding sustainability, transport and energy.