Teacher college students' views of controversial evironmental issues: Ambivalence and readiness to adopt a stance

Yehudith Weinberger*, Amos Dreyfus

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

One of the most important goals of discussing controversial issues in the classroom is to educate students to possess an inclination towards reason, open mindedness and fairness. However, research tends to show that teachers are not adequately trained to lead fruitful discussions about controversial issues and do not possess the necessary skills to perform such a task. This paper refers to one aspect of teaching controversial issues in environmental education, namely, the inclination of teachers towards ambivalence (agreeing to some extent with both favourable and unfavourable arguments concerning a proposition) and its potential consequences. The aim of the current study is to assess teacher college students' ambivalence concerning environmental issues, to explore their readiness to adopt a stance and when doing so to check their tendency to adopt a stance in favour of the environment. The findings showed that ambivalence was less common than non-ambivalence, although it varied across the issues. Most of the ambivalent students voted for a side. Furthermore, ambivalence did not prevent pro-environment decisions. The implications of the findings on environmental education are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)627-643
Number of pages17
JournalInternational Journal of Environmental and Science Education
Volume8
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013

Keywords

  • Ambivalence
  • Controversial issues
  • Environmental education
  • Teacher education

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Teacher college students' views of controversial evironmental issues: Ambivalence and readiness to adopt a stance'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this