Emotions and Culture in Disaster Education

• In Event: The Armageddon Club: Educating for the Future of Humanity — Educating Toward Equitable Futures 1

Abstract

The topic of Disaster Education is one of the approaches to be discussed, Currently, the predominant emergency management perspective is that people are best equipped to respond to disaster situations through practices of preparedness (Becker, Paton, Johnston, & Ronan, 2012, 2013). But how to generate disaster preparedness – and what does disaster preparedness mean? Preparedness is regarded to consist of actions, such as disaster response planning, trainings, drills and exercises, and the acquisition of supplies (Tierney, Lindell, & Perry, 2001). However, disaster preparedness levels are often low. Therefore, researchers struggle to develop ways to motivate people to act (Baker & Ludwig, 2016).
Education has always been one of the priorities in the global commitment to increase disaster preparedness. Although some progress has been made, today’s educational systems seem to be ill equipped to achieve such substantial shifts in behaviour (Amri, Haynes, Bird, & Ronan, 2017).
This paper argues that integrating emotional and cultural elements into formal disaster education could result in the public being more concerned with disasters and, subsequently, result in higher willingness to review and change behaviours related to disaster preparedness.

Author

• Roger Baars, Kyoto University