Open AccessMore is not always better: A study of country-level factors associated with adolescents’ environmental attitudes using a multilevel analysis of PISA 2006
Author(s) -
Byoung-gyu Gong,
Yi Zheng
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
education policy analysis archives
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1068-2341
DOI - 10.14507/epaa.29.4846
Subject(s) - multilevel model , multilevel modelling , environmental education , consumption (sociology) , environmental crisis , population , psychology , geography , socioeconomics , economics , demography , sociology , social science , machine learning , environmental ethics , computer science , pedagogy , philosophy
In recent decades, environmental problems have rapidly worsened to become a planetary crisis, and mounting scientific evidence supports that this crisis is anthropogenic. With the growing concern over the anthropogenic ecological crisis, there has been more attention to the factors influencing people’s pro-environmental attitudes. However, limited research on the adolescent population exists, and country-level factors were rarely explored with mixed findings. This study examines whether and how three country-level factors of national consumption, national average environmental knowledge, and national income level significantly impact students’ environmental attitudes, using multilevel modeling methods. The analysis results show that adolescents’ environmental attitudes are negatively related to the national consumption and environmental knowledge level after controlling for important individual-level factors while having no significant relationship with the national income level. This study concludes with a discussion on the future direction of environmental education and studies.