Sustainable Development (SD) stands on three pillars: environmental, social, and economic. Studies suggest that people's interest and concern about environmental issues may wane during adolescence (ages 13– 17), but researchers know less about whether this same trend occurs with interest in the other two pillars of SD: social and economic issues.
This study, therefore, set out to address this knowledge gap, examining changes in the broader concept of Sustainability Consciousness (SC). The authors define SC as “a composite of knowingness, attitudes, and self-reported behavior” as those concepts relate to environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable development.
The research took place in Sweden, which the researchers deemed an appropriate setting thanks to recent curricular revisions focusing on sustainability. Sweden introduced a certification system related to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), providing ESD-related teacher professional development and ensuring that certified schools would use this approach to teaching.
The authors surveyed 2,413 students from Swedish schools, examining for age-related differences in SC. They did so by comparing the views of adolescents to those of younger and older groups. The focal study group was 15- and 16-year-old (grade 9) students (termed as “adolescents” in this study). The two comparative groups were 12- and 13-year-old (grade 6) students (“pre-adolescents”), and 18- and 19-year-old (grade 12) students (“young adults”). Researchers selected study participants at each grade level to represent ESD-certified and non-certified schools. The researchers developed a 50-item instrument to measure students' sustainability consciousness, carefully creating three age-adapted, but compatible, versions of the same questionnaire. Students submitted their responses online, which minimized missing responses and allowed direct transfer of data to the statistical software used by researchers.
The researchers found a dip in students' SC as they entered and went through adolescence, but that decline subsided when they transitioned into adulthood. Mean SC scores were statistically significantly lower in all three SD dimensions for adolescent students compared to sixth and twelfth graders. Those results expand on prior studies that have documented a similar drop in environmental attitudes and concerns: in other words, these researchers found a similar adolescent-related pattern when also integrating SD's social and economic dimensions. This research contributes new knowledge by comparing youth at various age ranges, finding that the older group had significantly higher SC scores and mean values on all SD dimensions than the adolescent group.
The data demonstrated this adolescent decline regardless of whether the students attended an ESD-certified school. Further, the analyses suggested that the decline might be amplified for students attending schools with ESD certification. According to the authors, Kaplan and Kaplan's (2002) “Reasonable Person Model” (RPM) might offer one explanation. They describe this adolescent phenomenon as relating to interacting cultural and evolutionary factors. The RPM integrates three informational needs: (1) the need for building mental models (capacity to seek, understand, and use information); (2) the need for effectiveness (increased level of confidence and competence); and (3) the need for meaningful actions (opportunity to do what one believes matters). The informational needs increase during adolescence, while brain changes promote a shift toward autonomy. Consequently, adolescents pay less attention to others and are less concerned with environmental, social, and economic issues in their surroundings.
The need for meaningful actions is particularly relevant in light of the surprising finding that the ESD-schools were negatively associated with adolescents' SC. Kaplan and Kaplan highlighted that meaningful action has to include high levels of autonomy, social support, and respect for the youths' own thoughts on what constitutes meaningful action. This paper's authors posit that ESD-certified schools may reinforce a traditional, normative, fact-based teaching approach that does not consider the needs of different age groups, including adolescents' increased informational needs. The Swedish education system has modernized its curricula and certification program to promote the integration of a novel training-based approach to ESD. In light of the authors' findings, they highlight potential challenges in implementing the ESD approach. The authors call for more research to better characterize the relationships between ESD methods and the SC adolescent dip; they also suggest the need to study other geographical contexts.
The Bottom Line
Sustainable Development (SD) relies on three pillars: environmental, social, and economic. Research shows that youth consciousness related to all three pillars of SD declines, particularly during adolescence. However, an Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) approach that fosters student empowerment, ownership of lessons learned, and opportunities to take autonomous and meaningful actions might counteract that downward trend.