engleski

Willingness to Act in Climate Change Context: Student Teachers' Perspective

Climate change represents a complex challenge of our times. Learning how to cohabitate with climate change represents new discipline of pedagogy, which confirms that climate change does not only represent “a condition which we should be ashamed of” or “a problem that has to be solved”. The need for (student) teachers to show willingness to act towards the direction of sustainable development as well as willingness to implement education for sustainable development is particularly emphasized due to the fact that education for sustainable development represents one of the key areas within which it is possible to make progress in climate change mitigation context. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine predictors of student teachers’ willingness to act in climate change mitigation and adaptation context. More specifically, the objective of this study was to examine which of the following factors represent significant predictors of student teachers’ willingness to act in climate change mitigation and adaptation context: (I) attitudes towards climate change, (II) perception of action possibilities in climate change mitigation and adaptation context, (III) perception of future in climate change context, (IV) interest in climate change and (V) concern for ecological problems. 201 student teachers from the University of Rijeka (Croatia) participated in the study. A two-stage hierarchical multiple regression was carried out in which willingness to act in climate change mitigation and adaptation context represented dependent variable. Gender and age were implemented at stage one of the regression in order to control for socio-demographic variables. Aforementioned potential predictors were implemented at stage two. At stage one of the analysis, participants’ gender represents the sole statistically significant predictor. Women express higher level of willingness to act in climate change mitigation and adaptation context. Additionally, (I) attitudes towards climate change, (II) perception of action possibilities in climate change mitigation and adaptation context as well as (III) interest in climate change represent significant predictors of willingness to act in climate change mitigation and adaptation context. After implementing other predictors into the model in the stage two of the analysis, gender no longer represented significant predictor of willingness to act in climate change mitigation and adaptation context.

climate change ; sustainable development goals (SDG) ; student teachers ; education for sustainable development ; action competence

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