Perceptions of local environment change and ecological habitus

ABSTRACT

Research shows that people’s perceptions of environmental change are strong predictors of ecologically supportive behaviours and attitudes, but less is known about what causes some people to perceive environmental change more than others. This study considers whether participation in outdoor leisure activities accounts for different perceptions of the local environment. We consider how leisure activities form a broader ‘ecological habitus’ while also considering the role that education has in structuring perceptions and practice. We use survey data on perceptions of environmental change and use Principal Component Analysis and logistic regression to explore ecological habitus and the effect of leisure activities on environmental perceptions. Results show that outdoor leisure practices shape perceptions of local environment change and offer a continuum of ecological habitus ranging from appreciative to low resource outdoor leisure associated with varied perceptions of environment degradation. Education is a limited factor in predicting perceptions or explaining associations between leisure and environmental perceptions.

KEYWORDS:

• Environment
• environmental change
• perceptions
• sport
• leisure
• outdoor activities

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Rachel McLay who helped with the design and implementation of our survey. Research funding was provided by Ocean Frontiers Institute -Future Ocean and Coastal Infrastructures (FOCI) via an award from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2023.2234644

Data

Data can be obtained by request to the second author.

Correction Statement

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

Notes

1. The sampling error at 95% confidence level is 17,544.6.

Additional information

Funding

Ocean Frontiers Institute -Future Ocean and Coastal Infrastructures. There is no grant number.

Notes on contributors

Matthew Stackhouse

Matthew Stackhouse is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Western University. He is a life course sociologist who is primarily interested in health, lifestyles, families, and intergenerational relationships. His research also spans mental health, geographic health disparities, and environmental sociology.

Howard Ramos

Dr. Howard Ramos is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Western University. He is a political sociologist who investigates issues of social justice and equity. He has published on social movements, human rights, Indigenous mobilization, environmental advocacy, ethnicity, and race.

Karen Foster

Dr. Karen Foster is a sociologist whose research and writing spans the sociology of work, rural sociology, political economy, and historical sociology. She has drawn on both qualitative and quantitative methods to study economic issues from a sociological perspective: the history of productivity as a statistic and a concept, generational divisions at work, young peoples’ experiences on social assistance, and youth outmigration from rural communities. Her 2017 book, Productivity and Prosperity: A Historical Sociology of Productivist Thought (University of Toronto Press), explores how the productivity concept and its statistical representation—and the powerful discourses to which it is attached—have featured in three Canadian sites: the Dominion Bureau of Statistics; the short-lived 1960s body, the National Productivity Council; and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The book received an Honourable Mention for the Canadian Sociological Association’s 2017 John Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award.

Mark C.J. Stoddart

Dr. Mark C.J. Stoddart is Professor in the Department of Sociology at Memorial University, with research interests in environmental sociology, climate change, social movements, and communications and culture. He is the author of the book, Industrial Development and Eco-Tourism: Can Oil Extraction and Nature Conservation Co-Exist? (Palgrave). Through a comparative analysis of Denmark, Iceland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Norway, and Scotland, this project offers valuable lessons for how coastal societies can better navigate relationships between resource extraction and tourism. His work appears in a range of international journals, including Global Environmental Change, Energy Research & Social Science, Organization & Environment, Environmental Politics, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Environmental Communication, Mobilities, and Social Movement Studies.