Pro-Environmental Dispositions among Secondary School Students: Exploring the Gender and Socioeconomic Gaps

• In Event: Prepared for a Sustainable Future? Environmental Knowledge and Pro-Environmental Dispositions Among Secondary School Students

Proposal

The growing interest and participation of young people in climate activism in many countries underscores the importance of understanding their pro-environmental dispositions (Pickard et al., 2020). An exploration into these dispositions, however, must take into account the significant challenge of potential gaps shaped by gender and socioeconomic status. Various studies indicate that women tend to exhibit greater pro-environmental attitudes and behavior (Zhao et al., 2021). Adding to these findings, the political socialization literature suggests that the family plays a crucial role in shaping the development of sociopolitical attitudes, particularly in areas related social position or family academic orientation (Miranda, et al., 2018).
This paper aims to assess differences in young people’s willingness to contribute personally toward environmental preservation based on three factors: the student´s gender, belonging to a family with tertiary education, and family scholarly culture (as indicated by the availability of more than 100 books at home).
Our research seeks to determine the extent to which young people’s willingness to make personal efforts to help the environment are associated with students’ gender and/or family socioeconomic characteristics (i.e., parental education and scholarly culture). To this end, we use ICCS 2016 data to fit a series of generalized mixed models, assessing willingness to act pro-environmentally in relation to the three aforementioned factors.
Our results show significant gaps across the three evaluated aspects, albeit with certain variations between countries. Girls, students from more educated family backgrounds, and students from more academically oriented families generally tend to show a higher willingness to make efforts towards environmental preservation. Noteworthy is the interplay (i.e., interactions) between these gaps; for instance, a greater effect (acceleration) is observed when scholarly culture is present in families with higher education. Similarly, girls from families with a high scholarly culture or high educational levels exhibit an even greater willingness to contribute to environmental preservation.
It is important to note that these results are targeted at evaluating a very specific aspect of pro-environmental dispositions - willingness to act pro-environmentally. The findings set the stage for further exploration of this topic in the context of international large-scale assessments among young people.

Authors

• Daniel Miranda, P. Universidad Católica de Chile

• Diego Carrasco, Centro de Medición MIDE UC, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

• Cristobal Villalobos, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

• Ernesto Treviño, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile