CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Uktveryte, Jolanta |
|---|---|
| Title | Does nonformal environmental education encourage sustainable lifestyle choices? A case study of the Young Friends of the Earth Europe network |
| Summary | Urgent solutions are needed to solve global environmental crisis rooting in individual lifestyle, economic, social and political structure of our society. Sustainable lifestyle is promoted as potential solution where individual lifestyle can greatly contribute to sustainable changes in all societal structures, while nonformal environmental education (NFEE) has been suggested to foster peoples’ behaviour towards sustainable practices. This study takes environmental action perspective to investigate if NFEE patterns engage people to participate personally in solving environmental problems, which could encourage their sustainable lifestyle choices through personal change. This study consists of two major parts based on a case study of Europe-wide environmental non-governmental organisation Young Friends of the Earth Europe (YFoEE). First, NFEE methods/strategies employed by YFoEE in its activities are collected and, second, in-depth interviews with 10 members of YFoEE are conducted to explore changes in their lifestyle after participation in YFoEE. A Framework for Environmental Education Strategies is used and an index of sustainable lifestyle criteria is created to compare the case study with previous research and to identify trends. This study finds that relationship between NFEE patterns at YFoEE and its members’ sustainable lifestyle choices after participation in YFoEE has considerable influence in daily, political and social life variables, while moderate to minor influence in variables of psychological wellbeing and spaces. Considerable impact is identified to the members’ personal change as well. Recommendations are provided to education policy makers, formal and nonformal educational institutions and educators, scholars, and the YFoEE network. |
| Supervisor | Skanavis Constantina |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/uktveryte_jolanta.pdf |
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