| The present study aims to elucidate the determinant factors that affect environmental attitudes (EA) of senior high school students in Turkey and the origins of these EAs. Over nine hundred students from different school types, neighborhoods, geographical regions, social-economic backgrounds participated in the questionnaire based surveys which are called the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) and the General Attitudes and Perceptions (GAP), and twenty of those students were interviewed as well. Survey results show that EAs of students vary depending on school type, gender, parents' education levels and professions, and household income. Normal public high school students, females, lower-middle class students, students with well educated parents in white collar professions, and student with liberal parents have more pro-environmental attitudes than the others. With regard to school type, students from public technical high school (vocational school), almost all of which are based on single-sex education, have scored the lowest on both surveys which are the NEP and the GAP. The results from the qualitative portion are as follows:; Students' perceptions about the environment and related issues are limited to their local habitat. Although the mean scores of students on both surveys do not differ to a statistically significant extent depending on geographical regions, interviews show that participants from different regions have distinct priorities, which range from poverty to sea pollution. Even though students' first priority in their lives is education, education is perceived as a mechanism to achieve a more prosperous life rather than an end in itself. Almost all interview participants agree on the importance of education in shaping EAs. Interestingly, some interviewees (four out of ten males) also comment that a man's sense of his own masculinity can be threatened when confronted by another man to change his attitude towards the environment. |
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