Extract

Introduction

Tales of a Transdisciplinary Scholar

Marianne E. Krasny

More than 20 years after the historic Belgrade and Tbilisi meetings defining environmental education (UNESCO 1975, 1977), Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) posed the question: “Why do people act environmentally, and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?” In particular, they wondered why people who are environmentally knowledgeable and aware often fail to display pro-environmental behaviors. After reviewing the evidence for predictive models in environmental education, including those positing linear pathways from knowledge to attitudes to behavior, as well as those emphasizing altruism, empathy, and pro-social behaviors, they concluded, “the question of what shapes pro-environmental behavior is such a complex one that it cannot be visualized in one single framework or diagram. Such a single diagram with all the factors that shape and influence behavior would be so complicated that it would lose its practicality and probably even its meaning” (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002, 248). Similarly, Steg and Vlek (2009) and Heimlich and Ardoin (2008) reviewed multiple lines of research attempting to predict environmental behaviors, including those focusing on cost/benefit analysis, moral and normative concerns or values, self-efficacy, social marketing, social learning, and emotion. Whereas each model was useful in some situations, the authors found neither a unified predictive model ← ix | x → that explained environmental behaviors in multiple contexts, nor an explanation of which models might be most useful in a given situation.

A number of authors have recognized that environmental problems are complex...