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The role of environment clubs in promoting ecocentrism in secondary
schools: Student identity and relationship to the Earth
Dr. William Smith
This qualitative study used a deep ecology lens and the New Environmental
Paradigm to investigate anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in thirty secondary
school environment club students from three schools in Victoria, Australia. This
study repositions the deep ecology philosophy as a posthumanist/relational
ideology, providing a new perspective based on kinship with the earth. Open-
ended interviews were used to assess the alignment of attitudes, beliefs and
behaviours along a Deep Ecology Spectrum. Key aspects of deep ecology were
confirmed through the study findings including biospherical egalitarianism, limits
to growth, wildlife preservation, anti-consumerism, environmental activism, and
ecological identity.
Keywords: education; secondary; deep ecology; anthropocentrism; ecocentrism;
consumerism; ecological self
Anthropocentrism and ecocentrism are two major concepts in environmental philosophy
and environmental ethics (Boddice, 2011; Boslaugh, 2011; Washington, Taylor,
Kopnina, Cryer, & Picollo, 2017), yet there is little evidence in the scholarly literature
of academic investigations of ecophilosophy in schools, and peer-reviewed studies of
students in environment clubs are limited in number and scope. The research presented
here addresses this problem by using the deep ecology worldview (Naess, 1973) to
generate new perspectives on environmental education (EE) in schools, using data from
secondary school environment clubs. Previous authors have highlighted the problem of
students being disconnected from the natural environment (Barry, 2010), and show the
importance of peer support in pro-environmental attitudes, values and behaviour (de
Vreede, Warner, & Pitter, 2014). Others state the need for EE to promote responsible
environmental action (Hungerford & Volk, 1990).
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These issues were the focus of a study with thirty students from environment clubs at
three Victorian secondary schools (Table 1). Open-ended interviews on
anthropocentrism and ecocentrism were used to generate data, using criteria derived
from Naess (1973) and the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) (Dunlap & Van Liere,
1978). This article addresses three questions:
(1) Do environment clubs promote anthropocentric beliefs in secondary school
students, or ecocentric beliefs consistent with deep ecology?
(2) Do students in environment clubs show evidence of developing a situated
identity consistent with an ecological self?
(3) What social, cultural, ecological and metaphysical factors influence environment
club students’ relationships with nature?
Table 1. Student participants in the research.
School
Female
student
Male
student
Karatjurk
9
0
Bunjil
5
4
Waa
6
6
Totals
20
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Interpretive analysis of the data produced coding themes (Boeije, 2010), and a meta-
analysis identified patterns in the data that correspond to the deep ecology philosophy.
This study focused on the situated identity of environment club students, human use of
natural resources, and students’ thoughts on excessive consumerism. Gee’s (1999)
description of situated identity is used in this study:
[T]he term “identity” (or, to be specific, “socially-situated identity”) [is used] for the
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multiple identities we take on in different practices and contexts and would use the term
“core identity” for whatever continuous and relatively “fixed” sense of self underlies
our contextually shifting multiple identities. (p. 39)
The study also uses Gee’s concept of biographical trajectories (1999; 2011) to produce a
model for the ecological self (as derived from deep ecology). It expands on the work of
Edwards (2015), Fien (1993), and Gough (1987) to postulate a postmodern/relational
EE ideology based on kinship with the Earth.
In the following I firstly discuss literature on deep ecology relevant to school
environment clubs, and locate deep ecology within the landscape of ecopolitics and EE.
I then present a brief history of extra-curricular environment clubs in the broader
community, and a review of school-based environment clubs. The research design is
then described, including a recently described test instrument, the Deep Ecology
Spectrum (Smith, W. & Gough, 2015). The findings are presented, analysed and
discussed using the NEP and deep ecology themes, from which I offer explanations for
students’ thoughts on situated identity, the ecological self, limits to growth and
neophilia
1
.
Background to the study
Deep ecology is a term coined by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (1973) to describe
a deeper, more connected approach to the Earth, and he used the term ecosophy to
describe this branch of philosophy. The word ecosophy emerged from Naess’s thinking
about the metaphor of a mountain being alive: “a model of a nature in which we can
fully exist only with fabulous awe” (Naess & Rothenberg, 1989, p. 3). Ecosophy is a
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Etymologically, neos- (new, young, fresh), and –philia (liking, love).
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total view of the environment and seeks to clarify our place within nature, and to
examine problems at the juncture of philosophy and ecology through a personal code of
values and view of the world that guides our decisions about how we place ourselves in
nature. Naess’s definition of ecosophy derives from his background in formal logic, but
a more accessible description comes from Naess’s biographer and friend David
Rothenberg (2010):
Consider nature; consider humanity. It is not enough to say we are part of nature, [W]e
must redefine humanness so this is really true. The more we know of nature, the more
we describe it, grasp it, and celebrate it, the more greatly human we will become. This
is an ecological philosophy. (p. 3)
Naess’s solitary climbs into the mountains had a powerful and lasting influence on his
relationship to nature, and his view that the mountains were alive is central to this
article because it provides a mechanism for discussing connectedness to nature. More
recent views on environmental philosophy support the Naessian view of nature: “How,
for example, could one value forests, mountains and rivers for what they are in
themselves, if one sees them as nothing more than context?” (James, 2015, p. 3). Other
writers (Gough, A. & Gough, 2016) see threats to human relationships with the
environment (my italics) as a denaturation and instrumentalisation of nature, where the
natural environment is viewed as a resource for cultural, economic and social
development.
Neophilia
Naess (2005a) advocated a lifestyle that lived lightly on the earth, specifically
promoting anti-consumerism or anti-neophilia. Part of this study therefore focused on
neophilia, a behaviour recently described as the “curse of the new” driven by hyper-
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consumerism (Campbell, 2014, p. 29), a phenomenon that has been around for many
decades and tends to occur in affluent societies (Danziger, 2004; Murphy, Cooper,
Dora, & Rose, 2012).
Locating deep ecology in EE
The first green parties emerged in the 1970s (Spretnak & Capra, 1986) and deep
ecology was associated with the radical left “deep green” or socialist arm of green
politics, sometimes referred to as the “dark green”. Table 2 expands on this view by
representing deep ecology as kinship within the landscape of educational, environmental
and political ideologies, based on Fien (1993), and modified by Edwards (2015). This
location is consistent with Carolyn Merchant’s partnership ethic as mapped out by
Gough (1994): “Nature as active partner; Partnership reciprocity with nature” (p. 300).
In an effort to locate deep ecology within these interpretations, a fifth column was
added to Table 2 (posthumanist/relational materialist/radical) to incorporate a
posthuman discourse into environmental education (Gough, N., 2015).
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Table 2. Location of deep ecology in the ideology landscape.
Environmental/
political ideology
Educational ideology
Vocational/
neo-classical
(prepare
students for
their future
work)
Liberal/
progressive
(prepare students
for their life in
society)
Socially critical
(prepare students
for their role in
creating society)
Posthumanist/relational
materialist/radical
(the non-anthropcentric
gaze; non-human forces
influence learnings and
becomings)
Technocratic
Science is the
answer/Resources
are plentiful-
Cornucopian.
(environmental
problems can be
solved through
science and
technology.
Sustainable
capitalism). Blue-
green politics.
Conservative
education
about the
environment
(environmenta
l knowledge is
obtained from
positivist study
of the natural
sciences)
Management will
fix eco-problems.
Accommodation/
Managerialism
(environmental
problems can be
averted by good
management of
human–environment
relationships)
Liberal
education about
the environment
(environmental
understanding is
obtained through
problem solving
and enquiry-based
study of the
natural sciences)
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Communalism/
Ecosocialism
(solve social,
economic and
political problems
first). Red/green
politics.
Liberal
education in
(through) the
environment
(student-centred
and experiential
learning in
environments
outside the
classroom that use
the environment)
Critical/Socially
-critical
education
for the
environment
(learning through
decision-making,
participation and
action)
Ecocentric
Gaianism/Utopian.
The earth self-
regulates in a state fit
for life as a whole
evolving system.
Liberal
education for the
environment
(identifying
attitudes, values
and beliefs
through the case
study of local
environmental
issues)
Education with
environments. Sensitive
relationships with
environments. De-
objectifying nature
Kinship/deep
ecology.
(environmental
problems require
radical changes to
consumerism). Dark
or deep green
politics.
Deep ecology. Kinship
with the earth. The widest
possible identification
with nature.
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Adding the “posthumanist/relational materialist/radical” derives from the need to
embrace recent educational ideologies that “challenge the habitual anthropocentric gaze
we use when analysing educational data” (Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010, p. 525).
“We put to work concepts that open up possibilities to understand the child as emergent
in a relational field: a space in which non-human forces are equally at play and work as
constitutive factors in children’s learning and becomings” (Hultman & Lenz Taguchi,
2010, p. 527). The kinship location is supported by Gough’s (2015) description of
human relationship with nature:
Posthuman/place relations are not about individual subjects autonomously forming and
developing relations with the world but, rather, about realizing that these relations
always already exist, and might be as much influenced by the behavior of other
materials in the places we inhabit as they are by our intentional or unintentional actions
(p. 8).
Situated identity and the ecological self
Splitter’s (2015) description of identity is useful for this article to define an ecological
self where students exist with nature:
We develop or emerge as persons, and the norms and pathways of this development are
determined by our interactions with other persons around us. Parents, families, and
friends play their part here; so, in one way or another, do the associations and
collectives with which we are affiliated or which we inherit (nations, religions,
ethnicities, tribes, traditions, cultures, roles...). And so does the school (as society’s
provider of formal education). (p. 64)
Gee (2011) adds to the above theory of identity formation:
Since we all have a number of different identities in different contexts, the issue comes
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up as to whether there is some core identity or sense of self that underlies and unifies all
these multiple identities. Some scholars do not think any such core, unified identity
really exists, though almost all humans feel they have one. Other scholars feel that we
humans actively create our core identity by the way we tell the stories of our lives—and
what we have to say about who we are—to others and to ourselves. And yet this story,
and what we say about who we are, can change in different contexts and across time. At
the same time, it is clear that our sense of having a body (and mind) that is ours and that
moves across all different sorts of contexts is part of our sense of having a unified, core
identity. (p. 106)
These explanations of identity formation align with Tugurian et al’s (2017) definition of
“nature kids”:
Five children who self-identified as “nature kids” described their connection with the
natural world as essential to who they were. Leo explained, “Nobody can take the
woods away from me ... I really like the woods and I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t
have the woods.” Several children described nature in familial terms, like “nature is like
a brother to me.” (p. 147)
This study reports on how ecological identity might form in the environment club
student, and it follows Naess’s (2005b) connectedness to nature:
We may try to make the sentence “This place is part of myself” intellectually more
understandable by reformulations—for example, “My relation to this place is part of
myself”; “If this place is destroyed something in me is destroyed”; “My relation to this
place is such that if the place is changed, I am changed.” (p. 521)
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History of Extracurricular Environment clubs
Environment clubs have been around for more than a century, with the Bombay Natural
History Society reported as starting in 1883 in India (Roberts, 2009). Soon afterwards in
1892, the Sierra Club was founded in the United States by the conservationist John
Muir. This is the United States’ largest and most influential environmental organisation
(Sierra Club, n.d-c), with extensive connections to other governmental and non-
governmental agencies (NGA) responsible for EE (Sierra Club, n.d-b). The Sierra Club
encourages youth to participate in the Inner City Outings Program, a program for low-
income, inner city youth with trips to the wilderness (Sierra Club, n.d-a). For older
youth in high school or college, the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC) provides an
opportunity for youth to become effective environmental leaders (Sierra Student
Coalition, n.d). There are other national organisations in the United States that promote
EE to a broader audience that includes schools (4-H clubs, n.d.; Aldo Leopold
Foundation, n.d.; Green Schools Alliance, n.d.; National Environmental Education
Foundation, n.d.). It is difficult to know how long informal EE has existed around the
world, since there is a lack of research on the origins of environmental clubs and
organisations.
History of school environment clubs
An early example from Australia under this heading is the Bringing School Grounds
Alive programme (Smith, J. H., 1975), which took EE beyond classroom curriculum to a
broader context in schools. In the United States The National Wildlife Federation has
promoted a program, Schoolyard Habitats, since 1996: “ which create and restore
wildlife habitat on school grounds while providing outdoor classrooms for learning
across the curriculum” (2017, p. 1). Environment clubs in schools were also promoted
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in Scientific American (2008). Later initiatives in schools for EE in the United States
promote club-like environmental stewardship that fit within the same types of activities
and projects as environment clubs (tree planting, recycling) including climate change
education (Alonso, 2014; EarthTeam, 2015). There is a range of activities in other
countries – many associated with the international Green Schools and Eco-Schools
movements. New Zealand has a nation-wide EE program promoting sustainability in
schools (Enviroschools, n.d.). There are parallel EE programs in schools in England
(Eco-Schools England, n.d.), Eco-Clubs in India (Bhattacharya, 2010; Botanic Gardens
Conservation International, n.d.; Hillwoods Academy, 2010; Indian Central Board of
Secondary Education, 2010), in Japan (Japan Environment Association (JEA) Junior
Eco-Club Project, 2004), Abu Dhabi (Sustainable Schools Team, n.d.), and a growing
number of environment clubs in Australian schools (NSW Office of Environment and
Heritage, n.d.-d). Clubs have been formed under a New South Wales initiative in a
number of state schools (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, n.d.-a; n.d.-b; n.d.-
c; n.d.-e). The World Wildlife Fund has developed a network of Eco Clubs around the
world that schools can adopt (World Wildlife Fund, 2016). In Canada, the view is that
NGOs face funding problems and that “committed teachers facilitating environmental
clubs in elementary schools in Ontario is our best hope for connecting a generation of
children with their planet” (Flynn, Berry, Saker, Kavanagh, & Currie, 2002, p. 6).
Environment clubs can contribute to schools but they have in the past been seen
as offshoots of science, relegated to the periphery of school environmental work, and of
little relevance to some teachers (Robertson & Krugly–Smolska, 1997). One reported
way of overcoming this bias is to run the environment club after school (Aguilar &
Krasny, 2011). Indeed, for many environment clubs the goal is to integrate EE into
existing school programs, but in practice they are run as an extra-curricular activity.
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However, it has been shown in a number of countries that environment clubs can be
incorporated into both extra-curricular and cross-curricular programs (Fien & Heck,
2003). Environment clubs are widespread in Indian schools, with over 86,000 Eco-
Clubs run by the National Green Corps (NGC) (Roberts, 2009), but there are major
administrative problems around funding, training and resources.
Other studies of environmental clubs (Ana, Oloruntoba, & Sridhar, 2009; Toili, 2007),
show that activities can be menial depending on the definition of the environment, but
this is not always the case. A Kenyan study (Mwangangi, 2012), found that
environment club students do menial cleaning and hygiene work, but they also enjoyed
growing and planting trees, plant and animal surveys, and nature trail activities. A study
of Canadian elementary school students in environment clubs defined the environment
more widely (Flynn et al., 2002), taking in environmental concerns at a global level.
Chawla & Cushing (2007) concluded that for elementary school environment clubs,
activities should be about the school and local neighborhood, with national and global
concerns being more appropriate for secondary school students. For them, environment
clubs enabled young people to “exercise control of their environment and other
elements of their lives” (p. 442) and fostered responsible environmental behaviour.
Another Canadian study of four environment clubs (Lousley, 1999) found that students
were motivated to join by a sense of social responsibility, wanting to help and make a
difference to the environment, and to make the school a nicer place to study. These
students considered “how they positioned themselves at times within, and at times in
opposition to, mainstream environmental discourses” (p. 299). Lousley also found that
students in her study viewed environmental issues as complex, ethical problems that can
be “negotiated between mainstream messages and the politics of identity” (p. 300). She
challenged the notion that club projects (such as recycling) are “making a difference”
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(p. 300), arguing that these projects promote consumerism in the guise of environmental
activism, and reduce environmentalism to “a set of impotent, eco-correct behaviours all-
too compatible with the culture of schools” (p. 300). Her findings are consistent with
the theoretical framework of deep ecology used in this article.
Research design
Interpretive methodology
This study was qualitative and employed interpretive analysis for understanding what
was happening in school environment clubs in relation to deep ecology principles
(Rubin & Rubin, 2012). Open-ended interviews were the primary method of data
collection, but I also used a questionnaire and the Deep Ecology Spectrum.
The study focused on how the participants situated themselves within the school
sustainability milieu, how they saw a place for themselves in relation to world
ecosystems, and how they were affected by events that impacted the global
environment. The aim was to investigate their biographical trajectories, and to
understand their sense of agency within the greater ontology of environmental
sustainability, but also in comparison with others outside the school’s sustainability
community. The lens of deep ecology was used to analyse participants’ ideas about
issues such as biodiversity, resource sharing with other species and the abiotic
components of ecosystems, and humans that buy excessive amounts of consumer goods.
In each interview, attention was given to the metaphysical aspects of deep ecology,
looking for evidence of connectedness to the Earth.
In the development of the interview questions account was taken of the social
context of the study (a busy school environment), focused on the participants needs
(confidentiality and ease of understanding the questions), and planned to generate data
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via field notes, audio tapes and school records (Creswell, 2009). The focus was on the
narrative views of the participants, the socio-cultural meaning of the data generated, and
developing an in-depth picture of the experiences of the participants through
investigating the social meaning that participants attributed to their experiences in the
sustainability community at school and at home; and a philosophical investigation of
their social reality. The study aimed to inductively generate holistic explanations for
participant responses to the interview questions by integrating their opinions and
experiences with their knowledge of ecocentric ideology. The approach was exploratory
in that it gathered data directly from the students, seeking to understand their
motivations, aspirations and interactions as they relate to the natural world and their
lives within the environment club community.
Strategy of inquiry
The overall approach for the research uses the strategies of inquiry described by Crotty
(1998), drawing on the inductive method (Wallace & Van Fleet, 2012) where the
researcher looks for patterns in the data to form ideas and generate hypotheses for what
is happening in schools and homes regarding the research questions.
Study participants
Three secondary schools participated in the study: Bunjil
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, a state mixed-gender school,
Karatjurk, a state girls’ school, and Waa, a Catholic mixed-gender school with junior
and senior campuses. These schools had been identified as having active sustainability
programs. These participating schools were a convenience sample in that not all schools
approached were willing to part of the study. Prior to commencing the research study,
2
Schools have been given pseudonyms for anonymity using the names of indigenous
supernatural beings.
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coordinators at each school held an environment club meeting to explain to potential
participants the commitments to the study and to provide assurance of confidentiality.
Participation was voluntary, subject to parental approval where students were under the
age of eighteen, and the participants could exit the study at any time.
Nature of the interview questions
The deep ecology philosophy incorporates ecological, ethical, philosophical, social, and
anti-anthropocentric stances, and assigns intrinsic value to nature. A questionnaire and
semi-structured interviews were the two main data generating tools used in this study to
investigate these aspects of deep ecology. The questionnaires addressed the key areas of
deep ecology including wilderness protection, biospherical egalitarianism, the intrinsic
value of nature, lifestyles that harm the Earth, ecological wisdom, the ecological self,
and empathy for the Earth. The interviews were open-ended, within the constraints
allowed by the schools (30 minutes per student). All interviews were audiotaped and
transcribed. In addition, handwritten field-notes were made during each interview.
Together, these research tools yielded rich data and most participants were willing (and
some were quite enthusiastic) about the questions, giving elaborations that were
valuable to the final analysis of the data. In two of the interview questions, I used the
Spaceship Earth metaphor (Ellyard, 2011; Imura, 2013; Peterson, 2015; Rome, 2015),
an idea inspired by the Apollo space program (Snyder, 2008). Space missions allowed
astronauts to see the earth from afar, and “reimagine that the Earth itself could be seen
as a spacecraft” (Luke, 2010, p. 355).
Deep ecology spectrum (DES) instrument
The Deep Ecology Spectrum (Figure 1), was developed by the author to model Naess’s
(1973) binary of shallow ecology (anthropocentrism) versus the deep, long-range
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(ecocentric) view. Details of the use of the DES have been previously described (Smith,
W. & Gough, 2015). Briefly, participants found it difficult to align completely to either
ecocentrism or anthropocentrism. The DES, non-binary assessment was devised to
allow for a range of responses. Twenty-five students responded to this instrument.
Figure 1. The deep ecology spectrum (DES) test instrument.
(Copyright: Hannah Rachel Smith (2014). Reprinted with permission)
Results
Interview findings identified twelve major themes to environmental attitudes, beliefs
and values. These were organised into four overarching themes derived from the deep
ecology philosophy:
A. Social and lifestyle forces in school environment clubs.
1. School/home interdynamics – positive, neutral and negative interpersonal
dynamics occur (student, teachers, parents, siblings).
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2. Lifestyles and social decisions should be made that protect the Earth and its
resources.
3. Live ethically to preserve habitat (e.g. rainforest vs. palm oil).
4. Feeder primary school sustainability involvement can impact on EE in
secondary school.
B. Biospherical egalitarianism, Spaceship Earth and limits to growth.
5. Share the Earth and acknowledge human “Limits to Growth”.
6. Non-human life forms and the abiotic parts of ecosystems have rights.
C. Metaphysical connection to nature.
7. Have empathy for, and connectedness to nature, and a love for wildlife.
8. Students gave existential, ontological and metaphysical responses.
D. Student agency, identity, achievement and action on the environment.
9. Environment clubs engender agency and resilience in students.
10. Members of the environment club become more critical about environmental
debate, which promotes agency over self and others.
11. Environment clubs promote formation of identity and the ecological self.
12. The deep ecology spectrum (DES) scores show students align to ecocentrism.
Twelve sub-themes were identified within these four categories, indicated that many
factors influenced students’ ecocentric or anthropocentric beliefs.
A. Social and lifestyle forces in school environment clubs
The responses around this theme showed that some parents of environment club
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students influenced their children towards an ecocentric lifestyle, and promoted
sustainable living at home. Conversely, some environment club students promoted
ecocentrism and sustainability at home. Luke (year 7 at Bunjil) requested that his
mother Ruth not buy any products containing palm oil
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. Megan (year 9) and Rebecca
(year 11), both at Karatjurk, also opposed palm oil production, but they did not mention
influencing their parents. Some grandparents influenced student attitudes towards the
environment; Tara (year 8 at Waa) reported that she joined the environment club partly
because of a love of animals, something she developed from feeding chickens on her
grandparents’ farm. Cultural factors too played an important role: Martin, a Bunjil
parent of Indian heritage, wanted his sons Luke (year 7) and Brandon (year 9) to care
for animals (chickens), just as he had done as a boy in India. Crystal, a parent at
Karatjurk, made efforts to take her children on camping trips to national parks, to
promote a connection to nature. Student responses showed social interactions marked
by primary lines of force between students and parents, grandparents, and siblings, with
sustainability coordinators viewed as exemplars by the environment club students.
Another component of the socio-ontological milieu was the importance of club
friendship in starting and maintaining club membership. Data also suggests that
sustainability experiences at primary school promoted sustainability at secondary
school.
B. Biospherical egalitarianism, Spaceship Earth and limits to growth
Biospherical egalitarianism, Spaceship Earth
Study findings indicate that some students in the environment club are moving from an
3
Luke and other students had studied how palm oil was produced at the expense of orang-
utan rainforest habitat.
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anthropocentric past towards an ecocentric future. Kayla’s reflection on the DES is an
example: “Well, of course I’d love to be at ten but I know of course I’m not going to be
a perfect ten because of how the world [is] today. I want to say in between. I think I
want to say 6.5” (June, 2014). Sharing the earth with non-human life and whole
ecosystems is a concept that many students also understood, but some thought that
human need (or greed) prevented ecocentrism from being fully realised. Megan (Year 9
at Karatjurk) said that humans used a disproportionate amount of natural resources: “I
think that we’re a bit greedy with all of the environment and the Earth - that we’re
taking away from some other animals or other things” (June, 2014).
In the Spaceship Earth part of the interview, Emma in Year 12 at Bunjil responded:
I think if we keep going the way we are we're going to run out [of resources]. And I
think we need to start looking now at ways to use the environment in a more positive
way. [W]ind farms, and solar power, and things that are much more renewable than
using coal to get our electricity. Because that's eventually going to run out and we need
to try and implement ways to stop it before it's too late (May, 2014).
The response from Lucas (year 12 at Bunjil) to the limits to growth was: “We’re already
past th[e] limit [to growth]’ (May, 2014), and his response to the idea of Spaceship
Earth was: “And then move on to a different planet? So how can we look at that
[climate change] and minimise our effect on global changes to forests, and oceans, and
everything?” (May, 2014). Amber (year 11 at Karatjurk) articulates the problem
exposed by Spaceship Earth: “The human race has developed this hierarchy where it’s
always been about us and where we are the ones in charge of the environment.” (May,
2014). Gabriella responded to this question with a support for biospherical
egalitarianism:
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Everything should be equally shared between everyone and everything that needs it.
And ways of looking at resources that can be re-grown or reused are better than looking
at oil, which cannot [be renewed]. (April, 2014)
These findings show that some environment club students understand and support the
ecocentric view that the earth should be central to environmental concerns.
Limits to growth
Bunjil. Interview questions also addressed the issue of natural resource use by humans,
and investigated whether students thought that humans were approaching a limit to
resource use. These questions investigated if the students had an affinity for the needs of
the Earth (ecocentrism), or if their priority was to fulfil human needs
(anthropocentrism).
In response to the question: “Some people try to solve environmental problems
just so that we can have more resources for humans. What do you think?”, Lucas
replied:
When I think of solving an environmental problem, I don’t think of it as what do we
need to keep going? I think of it as what do we need to not [his emphasis] have an
effect? So, instead of how am I going to build this building? I need wood, it’s how am I
going to build this building? I’m going to grow trees, then use the wood from those
trees rather than cutting down current trees and planting a new one. So, solving an
environmental problem shouldn’t be about what we need now. It should be about how
we can have less effect on the rest of the world in the long run. (May, 2014)
Lucas’s response was ecocentric and he recognised the need for renewable resources to
minimise the impact on limited natural resources as outlined in the Deep Ecology
Platform.
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Brian’s response was also ecocentric:
It’s good that [some people a]re motivated to solve environmental problems, but using
those resources just for humans or human use is probably not the right idea I suppose
because when you talk about forests, that is the habitat to a lot of animals and it’s quite
important I think to preserve those animals’ habitats and continue their lives in [that
habitat]. (May, 2014)
Another question explored students’ ideas about limits to growth. I asked the students:
“Deep ecologists think we should live within the means of what the Earth can provide
us. What do you think about that idea?”
Allison’s response demonstrated her understanding of the concept of limits to growth:
[I think] the Earth should be first because in the end we’re going to suffer for what
we’ve done to the Earth. So, we should stop using all [of] the resources we have
because if the population keeps growing, we’ll eventually run out of resources for the
new people that are coming [along], and a lot of poverty will probably occur [as a
result] of that. So, we should put the Earth first because extreme poverty does occur.
(May, 2014)
Allison’s response was ecocentric and aligned with the deep ecology philosophy.
Karatjurk. For Megan (Year 9), humans used a disproportionate amount of natural
resources: “I think that we’re a bit greedy with all of the environment and the Earth -
that we’re taking away from some other animals or other things” (June, 2014). When
asked about her response to cutting down rainforests, Megan stated:
That’s a really bad thing. Because orang-utans are in the rainforests; orang-utans and
palm oil. [J]ust imagine if that happened to us; imagine if someone just came here and
22
took all of our stuff away and then we have nothing left. (June, 2014)
Megan reacted strongly to this question because she had done a project on orang-utans
and was opposed to human activities that destroyed animal habitat - a view that aligned
with biological egalitarianism.
Gabriella (Year 12) took a similar view to Megan, adopting a biospherical
egalitarian view of the issue, similar to Naess’s extremely broad sense of the term in his
words: “Let the river live!” (Fox, 1990, pp. 117-118). She stated that humans should
focus on resources that can be regrown or renewed. She also believed that natural
resources were limited: “We are running out of coal. So, things need to be looked at in
terms of different ways of looking at energy and not using up a resource that takes
millions of years to produce” (June, 2014). Rebecca also had a biospherical egalitarian
perspective stating that we needed animals and habitat, adding a notable existential
comment that “animals
4
deserve to live here as much as we do. We tend to distance
ourselves from animals. We’re like humans and the kingdom, whereas we were part of
the animal kingdom and we still rely on all the same things as animals do. So, we can’t’
just get rid of things” (June, 2014). Like some other students (Luke and Megan),
Rebecca was opposed to palm oil production because it involved the destruction of
rainforest habitat. She also supported the search for fuel alternatives other than carbon-
based sources.
Amber’s (Year 11) view on resource use was a clear articulation of the problem
associated with anthropocentrism:
The human race has developed this sort of hierarchy where it’s always been about us,
4
In the student responses it was implied that “animals” referred to “wild animals” and did not
recognise humans also as “animals’.
23
where we are the ones in charge of the environment. And since it’s been that way for
hundreds and hundreds of years, it’s hard to change the mind-set and say, “Why don’t
we save this so that we can save the animals instead of saving ourselves?” There are
cultures, like the Aborigines, who knew about the importance of balance and they had
the rule of kinship and connection, and they knew that you couldn’t use resources
without sharing. But this European-Western style type of hierarchy that we’ve
developed … has created this system where, if we are going to save something, it
should be for ourselves and our personal gain. (June, 2014)
When asked if there was a possibility that this situation might end, Amber said, “when
the politicians agree on something” (June, 2014).
Waa. The responses to questions on the limits to growth generated limited findings from
Waa students, but responses relating to neophilia emerged from some students. They
understood the problem of excessive consumption and the effect that it was having on
the Earth. Tara (Year 8) agreed that excessive consumerism should be avoided and
reported that families should use consumer goods until they were no longer functioning:
“If you keep getting what you want, the more things you want, the more the
environment gets demolished” (May, 2014). This was consistent with the Naessian view
that humans should principally satisfy their vital needs before addressing their wants, to
prevent environmental decay caused by excessive consumerism.
Alec (Year 9) reported that “other” students (i.e., outside the environment club)
“are [focused] on the now. And they don’t think about the future of what our Earth was
going to look like, and what their children are going to be living with” (May, 2014).
Steven (Year 7) stated: “most people have all the resources they need” (May, 2014).
Anna (Year 12) understood the issue of needs versus wants and agreed that there was
excessive consumerism. She felt confronted by the problem: “What’s the point of all
24
this? Why do we need all of this? It’s just this continual…And then you think of the
greed, and yeah, then you get sad” (May, 2014). Adrian (Year 11), who was studying
economics, claimed that consumerism was “essential for any government to actually
work” (May, 2014), but in a dialectical way, he saw the merit of humans limiting their
use of resources. Adrian was not opposed to people having the freedom to buy what
they wanted, but advocated for a more efficient use of resources through new
technologies, and for manufacturers to take responsibility for recycling outmoded
technologies.
C. Metaphysical connection to nature
Some data from this study on the metaphysical connection to nature has been previously
presented (Smith, W. & Gough, 2015). An example is from Brian, who positioned
himself at 6 or 7 on the DES, and gave the following statement to explain this position,
hypothesising about a world without humans:
Well, I can’t say [that] humans are at the centre of concern because I do have that
admiration [for] the worlds that are around us that aren’t impacted by humans. If
humans aren’t on Earth there is still that beauty of the environment and everything in
our universe. (May, 2014)
The study found that students in environment clubs can engage in environmental
philosophy, and are aware of their role in protecting the environment.
D. Student agency, identity, achievement and action on the environment
The findings for this theme provide evidence for the development in environment club
students of the ecological self, a term used by Naess (2005b) to describe the notion that
we are part of nature.
25
Bunjil
The eight Bunjil students were proud to be part of the sustainability culture at their
school. This was because of the reputation of the school amongst the sustainability
community, which in part stemmed from winning state and national sustainability
awards, but also because it gave students the opportunity to act for the environment. For
example, Brian (Year 9) stated:
I feel like getting involved and helping. I definitely feel good knowing that we’re
working toward helping the environment or doing something sustainable for the school.
The school has such a big sustainability reputation and getting to be involved is really a
privilege. (May, 2014)
Brian’s response is typical of the students at Bunjil, whose identity is situated around
club membership. The environment club comprises the students, sustainability
coordinator, other interested teachers, the parents of the students in the club, and the
principal. The findings show that the greater sustainability community plays a role in
developing the ecological self of the environment club student.
Karatjurk
Karatjurk differed from the other two schools as it was a single sex (girls’) school, and
many parents of the environment club students were university qualified professionals.
Findings from Karatjurk suggested that gender was an important factor in the situated
identities of girls, and could be an influence on sustainability practices and deep
ecology. Megan (Year 9) joined the club in Year 8 through a friend who was the
Middle-school Captain of the environment club:
Well, my friend said, “Oh, [Megan] you should come along to the environment club. It
would be fun”, and I came along and I enjoyed it, because I knew that I was helping out
26
the Earth. … Well, it’s better than sitting around at lunchtime doing other things, just
talking with your friends and stuff, so I was like, okay, I’ll help. I’ll do something. So, I
joined the team and it’s going very well so far. (June, 2014)
Joining the club was also important for Megan’s self-esteem: “Well, I know that I’m
doing something now, so it makes me feel a little bit better about myself” (June, 2014).
Siblings were also an important social influence toward joining the environment club
[Gabriella]: “I only joined the team because my sister was in it. But then I’ve just
continued to love it” (June, 2014). Megan’s responses suggested that friendships could
be critical in getting students to join the environment club.
Another finding regarding situated identity was student attendance at the
Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) conference in Canberra. Grace reported on
her AYCC experience that, before she went, “No one really talked about it. I barely
knew what climate change was, let alone how much of an impact we as individuals have
on the planet” (June, 2014). It was evident that the experience had a significant effect on
her.
Waa
Waa students spoke positively about both the sustainability coordinator and the
environment club. Rachel’s (Year 9) views were typical of Waa students “[environment
club] has really helped me realise how much the world means to us, and how we should
be caring for it in a better way today” (May, 2014). Anna’s views were similar:
Working with [environment club] really does show how much of an impact you do have
on everything, especially the environment and the situations around you. And so, in a
way it helped me mature and understand that, if I do litter, I can’t just do it
continuously. (May, 2014)
27
For Anna, the environment club provided an awareness and understanding of the
environment, but it also highlighted behaviours that damage the Earth. For a number of
students, being in the environment club was an emotional experience. One interview
question explored: “How does it make you feel when you work on an environmental
problem and end up either solving or reducing the problem?” Some students stated that
the club was fun, some claimed they felt good about doing something for the planet, and
others liked helping provide habitat for animals. Some reported that they felt special,
and others felt a sense of achievement. The environment club community at Waa
provided social cohesion and shifted the club students’ biographical trajectories towards
ecocentric behaviours and thoughts. Many Waa environment club students saw
themselves as being transformed into more environmentally connected, more active
members of the ecosystem - attributes that are part of the deep ecology philosophy
(Naess & Rothenberg, 1989).
DES scores
DES responses were obtained from students at Bunjil and Karatjurk, and the average
score for the study across all responses was 6.29 (Figure 2). This suggests a moderate
orientation (negative skew) from participants toward the ecocentric end of the spectrum.
Analysis of the transcripts indicated participants’ desire to see natural resources shared
between humans and non-human animals, and their rejection of anthropocentrism and
disproportionate use of resources by humans. However, some of the participants gave
anthropocentric answers because they spoke of preserving resources for future humans.
The lower scores were from students who claimed that it would be difficult for humans
to suddenly give up their resource-hungry ways, and therefore it was impractical to
impose a strictly ecocentric lifestyle. Given the low number of responses, more data is
needed to confirm the findings in this study.
28
Figure 2. Distribution of DES responses for both schools that completed the DES score.
Discussion
This study used a deep ecology lens to investigate anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in
environment clubs in schools, and postulate a model for student ecocentrism.
The findings indicate an orientation towards ecocentrism in most students. Only two
students (Alec and Adrian at Waa) gave an anthropocentric response that natural
resources should be preserved for future humans. Most students viewed that humans
should share natural resources with non-human animals, opposed anthropocentrism, and
recognised a disproportionate use of resources by humans (primarily driven by
neophilia or the love of gadgets). Amber’s interview showed that, for some students, a
love of wildlife underpinned their ecocentrism, confirming the finding of Chan (1996),
where students scored “a very strong attitude on the conservation of wild animals and
natural resources” (p. 302). Chan (1996), however, did not differentiate between use of
natural resources for humans, non-human life, and abiotic components of ecosystems.
0
1
2
3
4
5
0-.9
1-1.9
2-2.9
3-3.9
4-4.9
5-5.9
6-6.9
7-7.9
8-8.9
9-10.0
Number of
respondents
at each DES
score
(both schools*)
DES score
Mean DES
value 6.29
-ve skew (aspiration) towards ecocentrism
* no Waa data
29
In this study, the ability of students to overcome peer pressure and resist the
temptation to buy new gadgets (like smart phones), indicates that they had set “goals,
ideals, norms, and other guidelines that specify the desired response [to resist
neophilia]” (Baumeister, 2002, p. 670). Previous efforts have been made to educate
youth about unsustainable consumption (UNESCO and UNEP, 2015), but in Taiwanese
culture (Hsieh, Chiu, & Lin, 2006), for example, children are expected to make brand
choices that follow paternal wishes. A Hungarian study (Zsóka, Szerényi, Széchy, &
Kocsis, 2013), found high school students to be enthusiastic consumers, but constrained
in this activity because they relied on their parents for money. Cultural pessimists
challenge the rise of consumerism, because they believe it to be largely underpinned by
advances in science and technology.
The environment clubs in the study schools provide a critical opportunity for
students to develop an ecological identity. Most students viewed their sustainability
coordinators as exemplars, and friendships in the club were important, anchoring
student trajectories to sustainable lifestyles in keeping with deep ecology. Most
environment club students participated in club projects, and were opposed to
environmental disasters that killed wildlife. The importance of identity and personhood
(Splitter, 2015) and students’ social status were discussed earlier (Gee, 1999), from
which it is clear that the environment club has a significant effect on students’ attitudes
and their sustainability experiences at school.
The findings here support the argument that students are building an ecological self, a
concept introduced by Naess (2005b), and described by Seed (2006). Developing an
ecological self involves moving “from ego to social self (including the ego), and from
social self to a metaphysical self “ Naess (2005b, p. 516). In this study the environment
club students meet (at least in part) the requirements of an ecological self. They have
30
strong pro-environmental feelings, particularly for wildlife, are actively involved in
various environmental projects (urban forest, Frogbog, solar panels, conserving energy,
recycling, composting, etc.), and a few are also politically active (via the Australian
Youth Climate Coalition). Most environment club students in this study had high order
cognitive understanding of the key issues in sustainability, and some understood the
importance of connecting to nature.
Theoretical models were produced from the data analysis (Figures 3, 4, and 5)
with the core concept of the ecocentric student, a metaphysical concept grounded in the
Naessian ecological self. There are two major strands to the model. Along the
environment club strand is the dynamic of influence surrounding the members of the
club and the projects they had undertaken. These projects were important to the
formation of a particular identity and outlook of the club students.
31
Figure 3. Theoretical model for ecocentrism beliefs amongst students at Bunjil school.
Figure 4. Theoretical model for ecocentrism beliefs amongst students at Karatjurk.
32
Figure 5. Theoretical model for ecocentrism beliefs amongst students at Waa.
Student identity served as the foundation for many aspects of ecocentrism as seen
through a deep ecology lens. The second strand is essentially the building of an
ecological self and the formation of a system of beliefs that the student used to create
agency over their own destiny. Those beliefs were also congruent with ecocentrism. The
metaphysical experience is a key part of this strand. The arrow along the child-parent
axis denotes the flow of ideas and information from the environment club to the home
via the student. The diagram in Figures 3-5 reveal a dynamic picture, as denoted by
some double-headed arrows, and was inspired by the arrows used in reaction kinetics in
chemistry.
Implications
The present investigation of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in secondary school
environment clubs, using a deep ecology lens, revealed that students’ attitudes were
33
oriented to, and perhaps moving towards ecocentrism. Karpudewana and Keong’s
(2013) study in Malaysian primary schools using the NEP supports this finding.
Findings reported here suggest that discussions of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism
should be embedded into EE, and across the sustainability community of schools.
Findings also support the argument that students can connect to the earth along a
metaphysical path, rather than taking a narrow anthropocentric/technocratic view of
nature. Connecting to nature is necessary if students are to be empowered to act for the
earth. Schools are advised to reject shallow ecological approaches to teaching and
learning—replacing pedagogies that focus on fixing environmental problems with
teaching and learning programs that focus on the root causes of environmental
degradation. Students in this study expressed concern for the fate of world ecosystems,
and were emotionally connected to wild animals. Many of the students understood (and
resisted) peer pressure to buy the latest consumer goods, and they appreciated the
problem of neophilia in terms of the limits to growth and Spaceship Earth (Snyder,
2008). For many students, the environment club was an important source of friendship,
inspiration, personal growth, and achievement. The socio-ontological picture was rich
with multiple forces operating across the sustainability community at the three schools.
The Naessian philosophy of developing an ecological self, with the move away from
ego towards a social self, and then to an ecological self, is a sound framework for
moving EE into the relational/kinship framework described by Gough (1987).
Acknowledgements
5
I thank Prof. Annette Gough and Prof. Amanda Berry for their numerous comments and suggestions
on successive iterations of the arguments presented here. This research was supported by an
Australian Postgraduate Research Award.
34
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