Edwards, Rachael C;
Larson, Brendon MH;
Clayton, Susan;
(2023)
Navigating eco-anxiety and eco-detachment: educators’ strategies for raising environmental awareness given student’s disconnection from nature.
Environmental Education Research
10.1080/13504622.2023.2286929.
(In press).
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Abstract
Awareness of environmental problems such as climate change can motivate action, but educators debate whether to raise students’ awareness given that it may provoke eco-anxiety. We have even less understanding of how these relationships are affected by young people’s growing disconnection from nature. Through 28 semi-structured interviews in Canada and the United Kingdom, we explore how educators perceive students’ nature connection and eco-anxiety and how they introduce discussion of environmental problems. Educators frequently observed experiential, cognitive, and emotional indicators of nature disconnection and eco-anxiety, although many (39%) reported rarely, if ever, witnessing such environmentally related distress. Educators prioritised improving nature connection over raising awareness of environmental problems. When they discuss these issues with students, they emphasise hope and encourage pro-environmental behaviours to avoid eliciting eco-anxiety for those not currently experiencing it, a strategy that is partially inconsistent with literature suggesting some eco-anxiety can nurture pro-environmental behaviour. Our findings provide new insights into the challenges that educators face in helping their students navigate current environmental trends.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Navigating eco-anxiety and eco-detachment: educators’ strategies for raising environmental awareness given student’s disconnection from nature |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/13504622.2023.2286929 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2023.2286929 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
| Keywords: | SDG 13: Climate action; constructive hope; coping; pro-environmental behaviour; nature disconnection; youth |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10183053 |
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