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New intergenerational evidence on reverse socialization of environmental literacy

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Abstract

A large body of studies examine the role of parents in shaping children’s environmental literacy and affinity towards sustainable development. Yet, the intergenerational influence that adolescents can have on adults in return is much less well understood. Utilizing a household reverse socialization framework, this study investigates how different types of parent–child interaction may be channels for  intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental content from children to their parents. The empirical analysis leverages representative child–parent matched samples from South Korea and Macau SAR, in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 dataset, and estimates structural equation models to discern how parent–child interaction mediates reverse socialization of environmental literacy within the household. Most strikingly, findings indicate that parent–child interaction is an important channel through which children’s pro-environmental knowledge, attitude, and behavior positively affect that of adults. In addition, results reveal that the majority of child-to-parent transmission occurs through household educational interactions, implying that young generations are effective agents for positive change at home, and that there are less visible yet critical household reverse socialization spillover effects of pro-environmental education programs.

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Data and code availability statement

Data can be publicly available accessed from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 (https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2018database/), with permission of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The study Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) command is available through STATA version 15.1 (Stata, StataCorp LLC, College Station, TX) software. All other data preparation and cleaning codes are available upon request to the authors.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Shaanxi Province Planning Committee on Educational Sciences (Grant ID: SGH21Q017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, China

    Ji Liu

  2. School of Basic Medical Sciences, Xian Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Qiaoyi Chen

  3. First Affiliated Hospital, Xian Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Jingxia Dang

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  1. Ji Liu
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  2. Qiaoyi Chen
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Correspondence to Qiaoyi Chen.

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The study did not involve human participants and/or animals. All research ethic requirements are complied.

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Handled by Carena van Riper, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States.

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Liu, J., Chen, Q. & Dang, J. New intergenerational evidence on reverse socialization of environmental literacy. Sustain Sci 17, 2543–2555 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01194-z

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