Knowing is not enough for action: review and reflections on the relationship between knowledge and the adoption of environmental behaviours

Abstract:

The adoption of behaviours for the environment is a goal of Environmental Education (EE) and an explicit objective of many curricular designs. However, the bibliography tells us about the difficulty of achieving that goal. This evidence is questioning the effectiveness of the EE. From literature reviews about the adoption of behaviours from other disciplines, mainly Psychology and Sociology, a contribution to the field of the Didactics of Science, - of which the EE is a part - is proposed, providing some criteria for reflection about the role and type of promoter knowledge of behaviour as well as possibilities of action for educators. These extra - field contributions illuminate the complexity of variables that are involved in the promotion of environmental behavior, questioning the "magic" idea, -which circulates among many educators and other social actors-, that knowledge about environmental issues derives spontaneously within environmental actions.

Keywords:
Environmental education; Environmental knowledge; Didactics of Science