who learns from whom? environmental intergenerational relations
TRANSCRIPT
¿Quién aprende de quién?Relaciones ambientales intergeneracionales
Who Learns from Whom? Environmental Intergenerational Relations
Manuela Caballero GuisadoArtemio Baigorri Agoiz
Universidad de Extremadura (Spain)
Julio 2014
Overview
• This paper result of ongoing research conducted for doctoral thesis called "Senior and environment: on this side of post-materialist values"
• Study the influence of elders, socialized in a scarcity culture, in education (as complimentary actors socialization) for their grandchildren and assumption of sustainable habits
Research objetives
• Adquire fourter knowledge about the mechanisms and processes that provide social and cultural changes, whitin a holystic perspective analyzing the interrelationships between environmental and social phenomena
• Understand the role of older people in advanced societies
• To deepen the understanding of material values that affect cultural constructions.
• Reflect on the value of the non-scientific empirical knowledge of traditional societies
Hypothesis• Have been built with deductive techniques, from
the general principles of Inglehart's thesis on post-materialist values
• In the research design we consider three assumptions: – The children of families living with grandparents
develop pro-environmental attitudes more easily if grandparents were socialized in a culture of scarcity
– Consistency of pro-environmental attitudes is greater if it have been generated in a culture of scarcity, and lower when acquirers in a culture of affluence
– If generations socialized in scarcity they forget these pro-environmental practices (now called sustainable):• a) reduces the cultural capital of our societies• b) reduces individual responsibility in respect for the
environment
Methodological Aspects: Quanti
• Omnibus survey (multi-thematic) on 1,100 families Extremadura rural and urban environments, conducted in 2011 by our research group
• In order to measure levels of materialism -postmaterialism, survey include questions from World Values Survey (World Values Survey)successive waves
• Other questions are designed to try to mesure levels of environmental commitment, involvement in environmental conflicts, life styles and habits
Methological Aspects: Quali
• 40 in-depth interviews tri-generacional families formed with grandparents, parents and grandchildren, and that live together or have intense contacts between (conducted years from 2012 to 2014)
• Rural and urban areas and different social strata: upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class and working class (upper class has been very difficult to access, and dont' have interviews in this stratum)
• Several countries:– Spain: • 6 Rural (middle class and working class) and 14
Urban (upper middle class, middle and working class) – Mexico: 3 Rural (lower middle class) 4 Urban (middle
class and working class) – Portugal: 6 Urban (upper middle class, middle) – Colombia : 7 Urban (lower middle class and working
class)
First results• Throw interviews's analysis asses some meaningful
results, which should be taken with caution in this phase of research
• Most significant in our view is the persistent memory of poverty lived by grandparents during childhood and adolescence, which implies maintaining savings habits and practices, although most of them recognize the improvement that their economic situation
• Generally, savings habits and practices are learned in an environment of scarcity and are reproduced from parents to children (rarely from grandfather to grandson directly), so we could say that the influence is indirect grandparent-grandchild For consolidation savings habit grandson is basic the parent's cooperation (who learned it from theirs).
• In the most cases practices and saving habits including grandparents, parents, and even grandchildren, are not result of environmental awareness of respondents ( in support of Inglehart's postmterialists thesis), but are rather an effect of the fall of income:– in Europe due to the economic crisis – in South American countries because the retirement
pensions and wages are low, and taxes of public services (water or electricity) increasingly high
• In other words, generally the origin of these practices of saving and eco-friendly consumption are not result of the awareness and defense of environmental interests– we must for the origin in deeply material basis, as
income available for consumption: with less income (or anticipation of a decline), the lower their chance of spending.
• Generally, the practices and saving habits are learned by parents
• They try to inculcate their children and grandchildren because they understand that education is a matter of the parents
• The Families with less incomes (lower middle class and working class) keep saving and recycling habits, but not waste separation, except if they could achieve extra incomes
• Saving, recycling and reusing have been more or less present in all cultures of scarcity. But the waste separation is a new practice, as a result of recent environmental policies. And it requires more awareness and personal commitment, as an attitude which doesn't generate immediately benefits
• However, within wider spectrum of lower middle class families, those with more cultural capital, plus saving practices and recycling, and also more separation of waste.
• In general we can say that the separation of waste depends on many variables:– available space in house– existing public infrastructure for this– the cultural capital of the family– levels of environmental awareness– the possibility of receiving income, etc..
• Those who were not socialized in conditions of scarcity they also express attitudes saving and recycling and generally also of waste separation
• These attitudes would be closer to the post-materialist values as a result of awareness than basic needs
• The position of these groups could be summarized in the following sentence (when we asked from whom he had learned saving practices and waste separation):
• " (...) I think it has been easy once you became aware of the problem and reach environment....So, I think that I've had a suitable education as a consumer, then it has been easy to move on habits to concern (making a daily practice)" (Portugal, Upper middle class case)
• they are developing sustainable practices as a result of awareness and self-taught and are sensitive to the introduction of new practices that suggest them children and grandchildren
• In our view:– to be able to accept new enviromental practices
propoused by childrens, due to scholar education, it would be explained by the family cultural capital
– more cultural capital, more likely to recognize the childrens as persons with own rights and ability to provide solutions to common problems
• Finally, and despite the different levels of development of countries in which the interviews were conducted, no large differences in pro-environmental attitudes among respondents were appreciated.
