Cultivating Human-Nature Relationships: The Role of Parents and Primary Caregivers in Development of Environmental Identity
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Industrialized societies have been characterized by a trend of disconnecting humans from our natural environment, leading to environmental and psychological damage. Therefore, in order to work toward repairing such damage, reconnecting humans and the natural environment is critical. One way of conceptualizing human-nature relationships is through “environmental identity,” a term that describes self-identification as part of a larger ecosystem, aesthetic, spiritual, or recreational enjoyment of nature, environmentally positive behaviors, and a social, political, or moral identification with environmentalists. Despite the literature having emphasized childhood experience in nature as being essential to the development of an environmental identity, parental influence in environmental identity development has been vastly understudied. Drawing on research concerning environmental identity development, parent-child relationships and identity development, and primary analysis of interviews with college students and their parents reveals that parents and other primary caregivers are highly influential in the formation of environmental identities in their children.
Author: Anne E. Bremer
Institution: Claremont Colleges
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1125497