“Me and the Environmental Challenges”: A survey of English secondary school students’ attitudes towards the environment

Abstract

The article presents some of the results of the questionnaire‐based Relevance of Science Education Project carried out in England in the latter half of 2003 as part of a wider international comparative study based at the University of Oslo. Data, drawn from 1,277 students, most of them 14 or 15 years old, indicate their attitudes towards a series of environmental challenges. The study is presented as a contribution to the literature relating to environmental education and to the “student voice”. The findings reveal significant gender differences in attitudes towards the environment and in the responses that students seem to be willing to make to address environmental concerns.

Acknowledgements

The ROSE project is supported financially by the Research Council of Norway, the Norwegian Ministry of Education, the University of Oslo and the Norwegian National Centre for Science Education. The authors wish to thank colleagues in the Department of Teacher Education and School Development at the University of Oslo for coding the ROSE data from English schools and for advice on a number of matters. We are also grateful to the schools, students, and teachers who made it possible to collect the data upon which this article is based, and to the Royal Society for funds to support the statistical analysis.