Young Peoples Conceptions of Enviroemnet: A phnomenographic analysis.

Tony Loughland This study was conducted with Australian students and was based on environmental improvement through school-based education. For doing this, it was considered important taking into account childrens perspective of the phenomenon (term) environment. The studied phenomenon would be the environment concept For collecting data, there were over 2000 in-depth, openended interviews and their correspondent written responses (coded). The conjecture taken in this study was that children would relate an activity with the conception they had about the environment itself. This could show a nondualistic understanding assumed, in the sense that there is an image or mental image about what they think about the environment and what the activity or the real world would offer (what happens out of your mind) as a reality out there. The outcome was represented in six categories, which in terms of the researchers are reported according to the level of sophistication and inclusivity. The categories found about the conception of the environment were: 1. Place. 2. Place that contains living things. 3. Place that contains living things and people. 4. Does something for people. 5. People are part of the environment and are responsible for it. 6. People and the environment are in a mutually sustaining relationship. The variation across the group was taken as: categories 1,2 and 3 were perspectives of the environment as series of different objects so it is seen as an object, with negative or positive aspects (polluted, clean etc.) In the second group formed by 4, 5, 6 categories, the concept was tackled as series of relations between different aspects where a more dynamic and interactive perspective was shown. So as a result we can see that students perceived the environment as an object or a relationship. I see that the author mentions at the end that through a quantitative investigation there can be an understanding of the relationship between students perception of the environment and variables like school context and students attitude towards the environment. Since perceptions are contextual and they seem to vary depending on many aspects, I am not sure if a quantitative study would seem suitable to describe or give a clear account of whether or not the school location, for example, is a relevant or key element in the particular experience. Paola Hjelm.