Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/14769
Title: A Natural History of an Environmentalist: Identifying Influences on Pro-sustainability Behavior Through Biography and Autoethnography
Contributor(s): Manolas, Evangelos (author); Hockey, John (author); Littledyke, Michael  (author)
Publication Date: 2013
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/14769
Abstract: This natural history of an environmentalist uses autoethnography through biographical interview to investigate the contextual analysis of influences affecting active pro-sustainability behavior, which is interpreted as environmentalism. Education for sustainability categories of environmental, socio-cultural, political and economic factors were used to identify factors that interact to influence affective and cognitive domains, which affect environmentalist behavior. These influences in reality operated symbiotically but for purposes of analysis they have been portrayed sequentially. The portrayal of the auto ethnographer's vocabulary of motives and identity theory applied to group commitment were used as analytic tools. The research methodology employed provides a strategy for investigating biography, which gives access to lived experience as a basis for understanding factors influencing environmentalism. Processes of metacognition and reflexivity, supported by critical engagement with co-researchers, provide access to deep analysis of the biography. Whilst it was not possible to make statistical generalizations from a single case study it was possible to make limited qualitative generalizations, or in other words 'moderatum generalizations.' Subsequent examination of the natural histories of other life-long environmentalists would certainly not reveal detailed similarities in terms of specific biographical occurrences. However, the abstract categories of influence outlined provide a useful template for further investigating the process of activist identity development which we know little about at the present time.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, 14(1), p. 1-25
Publisher: Freie Universitaet Berlin, Institut fuer Qualitative Forschung
Place of Publication: Germany
ISSN: 1438-5627
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 130309 Learning Sciences
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 390408 Learning analytics
390409 Learning sciences
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 939999 Education and Training not elsewhere classified
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 169999 Other education and training not elsewhere classified
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Publisher/associated links: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1301151
Appears in Collections:Journal Article

Files in This Item:
2 files
File Description SizeFormat 
Show full item record

Page view(s)

1,148
checked on Nov 19, 2023
Google Media

Google ScholarTM

Check


Items in Research UNE are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.