Environmental Education, Values and Attitudes of Youth in Lebanese Secondary Schools: A Comparative Analysis
Master thesis
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/300712Utgivelsesdato
2015Metadata
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Sammendrag
Economic development has been a cause of environmental degradation for several decades.
Legal measures have been taken in many countries to curb the environmental impact, but
awareness, particularly among the youth, is vital in safeguarding future generations. Environmental
education (EE) has been developed in response to this need and implemented in many parts of the
world. In the last few decades this idea has been expanded to include related issues, such as social
justice, and is now more widely known as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Lebanon
started incorporating EE into their state school curriculum in the late 1990s, and in 2012 launched
the National Environmental Education Policy which set in motion a strategy to incorporate ESD in
the curriculum more comprehensively. Lebanon's environment suffers from multiple stresses and
there are political and socio-economic faces that making fostering an environmentally friendly
culture challenging. This research looked at what the current level of EE has accomplished in the
way of educating Lebanese youth on environmental issues, as the current format of EE does not
make focusing on environmental issues easy for teachers. This affects youth as the research found
their knowledge of environmental issues lacking, and additionally, opportunities for proenvironmental
action are few. A Norwegian sample group provided comparison, and interestingly,
Lebanese student's NEP scores do not lag far behind. Thus, while Lebanon has a ways to go to
improve EE, create an environmentally friendly culture and stem environmental degradation, the
comparison shows that local problems keep the interest in improving the environment high.
Beskrivelse
Master thesis development management- University of Agder, 2015