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Still ‘Minding the Gap’ Sixteen Years Later: (Re)Storying Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2018

Lisa Siegel Open the ORCID record for Lisa Siegel [Opens in a new window] ,
Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles  and
Anne Bellert
Lisa Siegel*
Affiliation:
Southern Cross University, Sustainability, Environment & Education (SEE) Research Cluster, School of Education, Coffs Harbour, Australia
Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles
Affiliation:
Southern Cross University, Sustainability, Environment & Education (SEE) Research Cluster, School of Education, Gold Coast, Australia
Anne Bellert
Affiliation:
Southern Cross University, Sustainability, Environment & Education (SEE) Research Cluster, School of Education, Coffs Harbour, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Lisa Siegel, Southern Cross University, Sustainability, Environment & Education (SEE) Research Cluster, Coffs Harbour Campus, Hogbin Drive, Coffs Harbour NSW 2450, Australia. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In their seminal 2002 paper, Kollmuss and Agyeman asked the important question ‘Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behaviour?’ The article has had a remarkably high rate of readership, with 64,900 electronic views to date, and 16 years later, this question remains significant. But are environmental educators and researchers any closer to understanding why people engage in pro-environmental behaviour? For this special issue of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education and its focus on ecologising education, it is timely not only to re-explore but to (re)story the concepts of environmental knowledge, environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviour, in order to generate fertile ground for the creation of new understandings and practices in environmental education. After considering relevant literature published between 2000 and 2018, this article offers an original framework for considering the complex, varied, and interconnected influences on the development of pro-environmental behaviour by (re)storying the development of pro-environmental behaviour through articulating it as a living forest.

Keywords

pro-environmental behaviourenvironmental educationenvironmental knowledgeenvironmental awarenessstoryrainforestposthumanismcompanion speciesliving forest
Type
Feature Articles
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 34 , Special Issue 2: Ecologising Education: Storying, Philosophising and Disrupting , July 2018 , pp. 189 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2018 

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