This article uses Cultural Theory (CT) to complement the Knowledge Deficit Model (KDM) in explaining the environmental concern of Chinese youth. We use a large-scale nationwide sample and adopt multiple multi-level models. We find that the effect of knowledge varies with measurements of knowledge and environmental concern. Youth whose cultural…

Conceptual change in undergraduate capstone courses provides unique opportunities to examine how students draw from multiple courses and experiences to resolve conceptual confusion. We examined how senior-level natural resource management students revised their conceptions of 'ecosystem' throughout their capstone course. The concept of ecosystem…

Purpose: This paper aims to understand why higher education institutions (HEIs) struggle to become sustainable institutions themselves despite providing relevant teaching and research on sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: Using 17 open-ended, semistructured interviews to determine common themes (codes) regarding sustainability, the…

This article argues that Education Studies needs to develop its existing interdisciplinarity understanding of structures and agencies by giving greater attention to the modern process theories of self-organisation in the physical, biological, psychological and social sciences, sometimes given the umbrella term "complexity theory". The…

Fostering the cognitive skills to analyse environmental "commons dilemmas" is an urgent task of environmental education globally. Commons dilemmas are characterised by structural incentives to overexploit a natural resource; their solution is particularly pressing in threatened biodiversity "hotspot" areas. Solutions to these…

This qualitative study focused on the experiences of eight male first-generation college students attending Kenmont College (pseudonym), a highly selective, residential liberal arts college located in the Midwestern United States. While first-generation college students have been studied in various contexts, very little is known about what…

This study examines the factors influencing language and script choice in instant messaging (IM), a form of real-time computer-mediated communication, in a multilingual setting. Grounded in the New Literacy Studies, the study understands IM as a social practice involving texts, encompassing a range of literacy practices, within which a subset…

Purpose: What is the rhetoric that higher education institutions use when they develop and publish policies to improve student retention? Using the organization literature on institutional environments, this study examines the nature and evolution of institutional rhetoric used by three public universities in a single state over a 20-year period.…

Purpose: The paper seeks to propose the basic competencies of environmental social scientists regarding policy analysis for sustainable development. The ultimate goal is to contribute to an improvement of educational programmes in higher education by suggesting a toolbox that should be integrated in the curriculum. Design/methodology/approach:…