Shifting Identities Toward Sustainability in Adult Environmental Education

Much research on environmental education (EE) focuses on students in grades K-12, whereas fewer studies examine how adults learn about the environment. Successful EE efforts targeting adults have the potential to increase the prevalence of sustainable behaviors, improving environmental outcomes. Therefore, the authors of this article examined perceived barriers to sustainable behavior from adult undergraduate learners, and explored the implications of these barriers for adult EE strategies.

The knowledge-deficit model, which has been used extensively in EE research, suggests that people will adopt more pro-environmental behaviors if they simply know more about the issues. However, many studies have shown that this model is insufficient; these authors believe that behavior is influenced by much more than knowledge. Adult learners, in particular, take cues from social norms, personal values, and more. The authors believe this indicates that environmental adult education (EAE) must go beyond providing factual knowledge and address more complex and ingrained learning needs.

In this study, the authors drew upon a growing body of literature that supports identity as an important predictor of behavior. According to the authors, people who incorporate a connection with nature or the environment into their identity are more likely to adopt sustainable behaviors. With this in mind, the authors explored how EAE could attempt to address adult learners' perceived barriers to acting sustainably by shifting their identities.

The participants in this study were students at an adult learning college in the Midwestern United States. The researchers recruited volunteers from a required course, in order to avoid selecting only students with a demonstrated interest in a given subject. This course did not cover environmental topics, and although participants had varying degrees of experience with sustainability, none of them considered themselves strongly environmentally engaged. In total, 14 adult learners agreed to participate. The researchers conducted individual interviews asking questions about environmental perceptions and barriers to sustainable behavior. After recording and transcribing each interview, the researchers collaboratively identified recurring themes and meanings.

The researchers identified two overarching sets of barriers to sustainable behavior: personal relevance and social environmental context. Personal relevance barriers included the inconvenience of sustainable behaviors, the lack of immediacy of environmental problems, and financial and time constraints on behavior. Social environmental context barriers included having limited EE opportunities, the lack of government and business facilitation of sustainable behaviors, and individual early-life sustainability experiences. Despite these barriers, all participants expressed environmental concerns and wanted to behave more sustainably. The authors conclude that these concerns and desires, though, were subordinate to other aspects of their identities, such as work and family.

The qualitative methods in this study allowed researchers to gain in-depth insights about peoples' perceptions and barriers, but limited the sample size. Because only 14 people were interviewed, more research would be necessary to determine how well these results apply to adult learners more broadly. Furthermore, since all participants were from the same adult learning college, the results may not represent individuals of all backgrounds, locations, and contexts. However, the participants were diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender, which makes it more likely that these results represent a broader section of the population.

The authors recommended that EAE programs consider identity change a part of the learning process and an important component of promoting sustainable behaviors. Specifically, the results of this study suggest that emphasizing non-environmental components of sustainability may be more likely to make the issues more immediately relatable. For instance, educators could draw a connection between air pollution and childhood asthma, which would be personally relevant to parents whose families live in cities. The authors also concluded that educators in adult programs should present sustainability with a greater sense of urgency. In order to trigger a shift in identity towards more sustainable behaviors, EAE must challenge adult learners' existing beliefs and provide motivation to change. Educators must carefully push learners out of their comfort zones while maintaining respect for those learners' individual agency; EAE should not attempt to force behavior change, but rather facilitate it.