The intergenerational learning effects of a home study program for elementary and junior high school children on knowledge and awareness of plastic consumption
verfasst von:
Maheshwari Kalyanasundaram, Yuta Ando, Misuzu Asari
Education through intergenerational learning (IGL) can be a key to consumer behavior change to combat plastic issues. The objectives of this study are to create a home study program that fosters IGL, targeting elementary and junior high school children of Kyoto city, understand if the program can increase student’s personalization of plastics issues, and understand if IGL can play a role in enabling plastic reduction actions in the household. A program, in which the 25 participating children proposed, executed, and monitored 3 actions to reduce plastic consumption, including their family, was successfully developed. To analyze the changes, children’s pre- and post-questionnaires and parents post-questionnaire were distributed. By experiencing the program, children felt increased guilt toward plastic use. Qualitative analysis revealed the barriers (lack of options, habits, lack of information) felt by the children when trying to reduce plastic. Feelings of guilt and facing barriers are parts of personalization and indicate that the program had initiated personalization process. In terms of IGL, qualitative analysis revealed that families that had social issues-based conversations during the program, and children who themselves decided reduction actions, engaged in plastic reduction better. Hence, education centering around IGL with effective personalization can influence household behavior.
Part of this research was presented at the 3R International Conference (3RINCS), March 2023, Kyoto, Japan and the 33rd Japan Society of Material Cycles and Waste Management Conference, September 2022, Miyazaki, Japan.
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Introduction
Plastic issues and the need for education
The global shift to single-use products and increase in packaging has caused a drastic increase in plastic consumption [1, 2]. This has led to the accelerated rise of plastics-related environmental issues. Japan’s per capita plastic waste generation is approximately 28.1 kg/capita/year [3] and is among the highest in Asia [4]. While Japan is known for recycling 86% of its plastic waste [5], most of it is thermal recycling (recovery) and material recycling is reliant on foreign countries. To address its plastic waste management, Japan announced in 2019 that it would reduce its disposable plastic waste by 25% within 2030. Several policies such as the charging of plastic bags in 2020 and the reduction of 12 target items were introduced to achieve the reduction target. However, the implementation of this depends on the movement of manufacturers, local governments as well as consumers. Awareness is key to change the behavior of consumers. Thus, the need for appropriate education and communication to facilitate this process is important.
One of the means of achieving awareness is education. A population that is seen as having the biggest potential to effectively change is children. The ages between 6 and 14 are very formative years when children form their identities and self-esteem [6]. Lawson et.al [7] mention how children are less biased compared to their parents and are more open to new information. Lucas et.al [8] affirm that children are less biased and learn based on current events. Furthermore, children can learn causal relationships very quickly and understand abstract properties of causal events with only a few events as examples [8]. Several environmental educational programs target children since they are the future of society and can act to influence the extended society [9]. Moreover, the population exposed to the direct influence of children is their immediate family, especially their parents. Through the transfer of knowledge and awareness from child to parent, otherwise known as intergenerational learning (IGL), there is a possibility that parents are more open to change.
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Intergenerational learning (IGL)
IGL is a learning process where knowledge, attitudes, and behavior are actively or passively transferred from one generation to the other [10]. While transfer of information from parents to child is studied more often, the influence from child to parent in decision-making is also an important avenue. Uzzell [11] defines intergenerational influence in their research as the process through which young people can act as catalysts of environmental change among their parents and other adult members of the community they belong to. Bailey [12], Williams et.al [13], Wang et. al [14], Essiz and Mandrik [15] define such an influence as reverse IGL.
Child’s successful influence is seen in several issues including modern technology [12] and sexual orientation [16]. In the field of environmental education, influence of child to parent is often seen in the field of waste education [17, 18], climate change [14, 19], flood resilience [13] as well as biodiversity conservation [20].
Common themes observed in IGL for climate change and biodiversity education is that parents tend to trust their children more than outside influences, and especially if the child is given more opportunity to communicate their opinions, the parents are open to influence. Crisscrossing elements of IGL in waste management-based educational intervention is effect of the position of the child in the family on transfer of influence to the parents. Across most IGL-based research, it could be seen that if the child is given more opportunity to express his or her opinions and if it is taken seriously by the parents, they are more willing to change their behavior.
Thus, we can see that family communication is an important mechanism in transfer of consumption related attitudes and behaviors. Gronhoj and Thogersen [21] say that talking about the source of environmental problems cause children to build more personal norms and consciousness to enable pro-environmental behavior. Hence, higher frequency and quality of communication are key in IGL. While there are several environmental educational intervention-based research, research targeting changing plastic consumption behavior of an entire household through the means of IGL is few. Thus, analyzing the potential of IGL in changing plastic consumption behavior change is the aim of this research.
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Pro-environmental behavior and its factors
Change in awareness and the effects of IGL can be better measured and understood using models and their factors such as Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). TPB was developed by Ajzen [22] in 1985 to better understand and explain behavior. TPB has 3 conceptually independent determinants of intention to conduct behavior, namely, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavior control which have been considered as factors for pro-environmental behavior and included in the questionnaire design. In addition to the factors mentioned in TPB, the following 2 factors were also considered in this research.
Knowledge: Liao and Li [9] performed an educational intervention-based study and evaluated the effects of environmental education, knowledge, and TPB variables to predict school students’ on-campus waste segregation behavior. Their result showed that knowledge is a powerful predictor of attitude and intention.
Personalization: TPB looks at behavior through personal expectancy (how it would benefit one’s interest) [23]. However, it is important to also consider the moral beliefs and personalization of environmental issues in predicting behavior. Schwartz [24] defines personalization/personal norms as “self-expectations that are based on internalized values” and are “experienced as feelings of personal obligation to engage in a certain behavior”. It is different from attitude in that attitude is more focused on material/social/psychological satisfaction. However, personalization looks at moral worth to the self [24].
Research objectives
This research aims to.
1.Develop an environmental education home study program that fosters IGL, targeting elementary and junior high school students of Kyoto City.
2.Understand if the program can increase student’s personalization of plastic issues,
3.Understand if IGL can play a key role in enabling plastic reduction actions in the household.
Implementation of IGL in this research
In this research, we focused on fostering communication between parent and child by creating hands-on activities that engage parent and child. We created activities that influenced the communication frequency of parent and child as well as quality of communication [14], which are the final two variables.
Frequency of communication was measured in terms of social issues-based communication, knowledge-based communication, and opinion-based communication.
Quality of communication was measured in terms of expression of opinion by child, expression of opinion by parent, and inclusivity of child in decision-making.
Frequency and quality of communication will be looked at in relation to behavior to understand the impact of IGL.
Materials and methods
Program outline
To implement IGL-based education, a 2-week program was designed. The program was called “My Plastic Diary” and was targeted at elementary school and junior high school children mainly in Kyoto city, Japan. The program was designed as a home study program that the children could carry out in their own time as per their convenience. This was decided to make the program as flexible as possible for children who have varying schedules and to adapt to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation. The program was conducted entirely in Japanese. Children were recruited through an advertisement on the April 2022 edition of a monthly newspaper called “Bikkuri Eco Newspaper” which is distributed across elementary and junior high schools in Kyoto city. The children registered to the program through the QR Code provided. During registration of the program, we ensured to receive agreement from the parents regarding data collection and assured safety of the data and personal information. A total of 25 students from 21 families (21 parents) completed the program.
The program itself was conducted between May 9th and May 30th 2022. The children received a package comprising a guide document for parents, the pre- and the post-questionnaires for children, the pre-questionnaire for parents (post-questionnaire was conducted online to avoid bias), and the workbook used to conduct the program. The children could carry out the program requirements anytime between 9 and 30th May and send back the questionnaires and workbook.
Table 1 depicts the main details of the missions performed by the child, including its aim, details of activity, and targeted factor.
Table 1
Description of 6 main missions
Mission 1
Plastics in my bag
Aim
Children can realize how many plastic products they subconsciously use and how plastics have become such an integral part of our lifestyle now
Activity
Children look at what kind of plastic products do they carry around in their own bag and count the total number of plastic products
Target factors
Knowledge, personalization
Mission 2
Plastics in my family’s bag
Aim
1. An opportunity for IGL is created
2. The family member can also realize how much plastics they consumed subconsciously
3. Family and children can get an idea of what kind of plastics they can target to reduce
Activity
The children repeat the same process as the previous mission but using their parent’s bag. Then they go one step further and plot the plastic products found in their parents’ bag in the Plastic Identification Chart developed [31]
x axis: cannot be reduce ← →can be reduced; y axis: disposed immediately ← → can use long term
Target factors
Knowledge, personalization, IGL
Mission 3
Plastics that we shopped
Aim
Children observe the various types of plastic packaging
Activity
Children are to observe the shopped contents and look at the kind of plastic packaging available. Then they classify the packaging into 3 categories of “plenty of plastic packaging”, “relatively less plastic packaging”, and “no plastic packaging”
Target factors
Knowledge, personalization
Mission 4
Supermarket Survey
Aim
Children survey potential plastic-free shopping options for the rest of the family
Activity
Children are required to visit their nearest supermarket and look for plastic packaging-free options in fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, side dishes, and seasoning. These items are specifically targeted as they often have alternatives (such as buying in bulk)
Target factors
Knowledge, personalization, IGL
Mission 5
Deciding 3 actions to reduce plastic consumption
Aim
Children to reflect and come up with measure to reduce plastic waste with their family
Activity
Children are required to come up with several idea to help reduce plastic waste at home by reflecting on their observations from the previous missions. Then they discuss with their parent/family and narrow down their ideas to 3 main actions/ideas that they will follow as a family
Target factors
IGL, personalization
Mission 6
Implementation of the 3 actions
Aim
Implementation of Behavior
Activity
Children were required to implement the 3 actions and monitor the level of implementation of all family members for a period of 1 week
Target factors
IGL, personalization
As can be seen in Fig. 1, the first 4 missions are created to help the children draw observations that can be useful in coming up with ideas for mission 5. The ideas decided and finalized in mission 5 were then to be implemented in mission 6. The first 4 missions could be done in any order so long as it is completed within the stipulated time. Mission 5 and 6, however, had to be carried out in order.
Questionnaire design, interview, and analysis
For this program, 4 questionnaires in total were administered to the children and parents including 2 pre-questionnaires (for child and parent) and 2 post-questionnaires (for child and parent). The children’s pre- and post-questionnaire and parents’ post-questionnaire structure is given in the table below. A 5-point Likert Scale was provided for each question as can be seen in Table 2.
How often did the following occur on average during the course of the program compared to before:
Child to parent questions
Parent to child questions
Child expressing opinions
Parent expressing opinions
1: Much more frequent than before
5: Much less frequent than before
Behavior
3
How much did the following people implement the 3 actions during the program?
Child
Parent
Other members of the family
1: Implemented everything everyday
5: Implemented nothing
One parent and two children agreed to give an interview with us. The interview was conducted after the questionnaires were submitted by the children. In the case of the children, the interview was based on their questionnaire answers and their workbook reflections to gain a deeper insight. In the case of the parent, the interview questions dove deeper into the communication frequency, quality, and behavior motivation.
To understand the change in the various factors, data analysis was conducted through comparing average of the answers for each factor in the pre- and post-questionnaire, cross-analysis of parents’ questionnaire and qualitative analysis of workbook results, parents’ questionnaire, and interview results. The analysis was conducted through Microsoft Excel.
Results and discussion
Developing and conducting the program
25 children from 21 families were successfully able to complete the program within the stipulated deadline of May 30th, 2022. Of the children who completed the program, 17 were female and 8 were male. Most of the children (n = 19) are from elementary school 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. We have 3 children from elementary school 1st and 2nd grade and 3 children from junior high school 1st and 3rd grades.
By comparing the pre- and post-questionnaires, it was evident that the children had a variety of reactions and insights. From the pre-questionnaire, it was observed that the children and parents already displayed high motivation in all the variables. Their high level of interest of this sample is evident when compared to the research by Ando et.al, 2023 [25] which samples 10,000 participants across Japan regarding plastic issues awareness. The research shows about 5–7% of those in their teens and 5–10% of adults are extremely interested in plastic issues [25]. In contrast, 43% of the children and 34.2% of the parents who registered for this research mention that they are extremely interested. Thus, the program was successfully developed and conducted with participants with high levels of interest.
Program’s impact on student’s personalization
In terms of personalization, more children admit to feeling guilty about using plastics after the program compared to before as can be seen in Fig. 2 below. Schwartz’s norm activation theory [24] suggests that environmental behavior is influenced by an intrinsic motivation to perform a certain action. Intrinsic motivation is created by perception of the other (in this case one’s environment) in need and feelings of reward when able to help or feeling of guilt when unable to help. Thus, the results of pre–post comparison suggests that children had feelings of guilt when they were unable to perform the behavior, thus suggesting that the process of issue personalization had begun in the children.
Fig. 2
Children’s feelings of guilt seem to have increased after the program
×
There is also a significant difference in attitude toward the importance of reducing plastics among the children after the program. In this case, lesser children strongly agreed after the program compared to before and one child even seems to disagree that reducing plastics is important, as can be seen in Fig. 3 below.
Fig. 3
Children seem to recognize the importance of plastics lesser after the program
×
Finally, children saw a significant change in terms of norms related to people around them displaying behavior of reducing plastics. This shows that more children saw their families also engaging in plastic reduction behavior as can be seen in Fig. 4 below. This is indicative that the program gave a chance for family members to actively reduce plastic consumption and the response has been positive. The factor that affected behavior of the family is increased frequency in conversations about social issues as will be discussed in Sect. "Communication frequency".
Fig. 4
More children observed people around them engaging in plastic reduction behavior
×
In summary, the children faced a variety of changes, including emergence of guiltiness when using plastic products and observation of family members engaging in plastic reduction behavior. However, there is a negative change in children’s perceived importance of plastic issues. The reason for this change was qualitatively delved into. Individual children who reported negative changes for each of the variables were picked up and their questionnaire answers, workbook answers, and interview answers (for those who gave interviews) were considered. These answers were then grouped together based on similarity as can be seen in Fig. 5 below. The groups were further clubbed together to reveal 3 major barriers, namely lack of options, habitual barriers, and lack of knowledge as can be seen in Fig. 5. Each of these barriers, including the answers of the children, is detailed below.
Fig. 5
Categorization of barriers to plastic reduction from worksheets and interviews
×
Lack of options
Several children came to feel the difficulty of carrying out plastic reduction actions especially when looking for plastic-free alternatives when shopping.
First, the children felt a barrier when looking for suitable alternatives to plastics, particularly with regards to things they commonly consume, such as snacks or drinks. Child S (female, elementary 4th grade) reflected that the nearby supermarket did not have as many plastic-free items. Child G (female, elementary 5th grade) mentioned that most items she bought were wrapped in plastics. Child V (male, elementary school 5th grade) mention that he found it hard to avoid candy without individual packaging. Child F (female, elementary school 5th grade) mentioned in her reflection of mission 6 that when shopping, they would like to buy paper/ bulk/ plastic-free items. However, such items are not found as much. There are more plastics around them than expected. Child S (female, elementary school 4th grade) remarked how her favorite carbonated drink always came in plastic bottles and had no alternative.
In case plastic-free alternatives were found, they tended to be more expensive. For instance, Child U (female, elementary school 2nd grade) remarked that snacks found in paper packaging was more expensive. Some children tried to use the available alternatives but did not find it to be as good as the original product. For instance, Child S (female, elementary school 4th grade) tried to use silicon wraps instead of plastic wraps. While these wraps were good for microwaving, they were not effective to store food.
Second, the supermarket/restaurant culture also made it difficult for them to avoid plastics. For instance, Child V (male, elementary school 5th grade) tried to buy packaging-free fruits and vegetables, but before they realized, it got wrapped in loose plastic covers by the cashier. Child R (female, elementary school 6th grade) similarly experienced that many shops end up putting things in plastic covers (e.g., meat/fish trays or fruits/vegetables) at the cashiers. She also remarked that in chain restaurants, they put the food originally wrapped in paper bags in a plastic bag.
Habitual barriers
The children also found difficulty in trying to change their own habits or the habits of their family. In terms of convincing those around them, Child P (female, elementary school 4th grade) mentioned how her mother forgot to carry her own bottle and her own bag in their daily monitoring of Mission 6. In her daily reflection of mission 6, Child P (female, elementary school 4th grade) remarks 5 out of the 7 days that she wanted to convince their father to implement one of the 3 actions (reducing shopping frequency at convenience store) but found it hard. The family member’s inability to break from habits and the trouble of trying to change her mind may have caused her to think that reducing plastics is difficult. Child V (male, elementary school 5th grade) mentioned how his mother uses a lot of frozen food for lunch boxes which leads to plastic packaging. Furthermore, it is difficult to clean plastics to recycle. Changing these habits is difficult so the child may have lost his confidence in reducing plastics. Child G (female, elementary school 5th grade) inability to convince her father to reduce going to the convenience store might have impacted their answers.
In terms of changing one’s own behavior, Child D (male, elementary school 4th grade) mentioned that during the weekend, he bought lunch and ended up buying a lot of plastic. He realized the need to be careful. Child H (female, elementary school 6th grade) mentioned that she ended up buying a lot of drinks since carrying around their own bottle was not enough. Furthermore, she mentioned how it is difficult to break out of habits and often forget their bottle or end up buying plastic bags.
Furthermore, the children began to see how their lives are made convenient by plastics. Child S (female, elementary school 4th grade) mentions that plastics are very convenient for food and so people will continue to use it. Child R (female, elementary school 6th grade) mentioned how plastic bags are easier to carry around and do not crease easily, making it convenient but they contribute to plastic issues.
Lack of information
In terms of lack of information, children faced two major barriers: understanding if their interventions were effective and recycling rules of surrounding infrastructures, such as supermarkets. One of the 3 actions to reduce plastics decided by Child V (male, elementary school 5th grade) was to buy products with lesser labels. However, in his reflection of mission 6, he mentions that his mother once bought a water bottle with a smaller label, but he does not think it is effective in reducing plastics as it is not different from other PET bottle products.
Child L (male, elementary school 4th grade) found recycling hard since he did not have information on supermarket regulations on recyclables. He mentions in their reflection that recyclable items differ from supermarket to supermarket and that egg packets cannot be recycled everywhere.
Successful achievement of personalization and overcoming the barriers
In the above analysis of the qualitative answers, through actively engaging in plastic reduction behavior and facing several barriers, students experienced feeling guilt and experienced changes in attitude. As mentioned by Schwartz [24], it is evident that through the emergence of such feelings, particularly guilt, the children had begun the process of personalization through the program. However, continued existence of the barriers can create a negative reaction as was observed in the change in attitude, particularly with importance of plastic issues. Thus, methods to overcome the barriers must be considered.
The above 3 barriers are similar to the barriers faced by the citizens of Kyoto city as mentioned in Uehara et.al [26]. Out of 11 listed barriers in the research, behavior change of citizens of Kyoto city is most obstructed by “approaches to carry out the required behavior are unclear” (Lack of Options falls under this umbrella), “Current behaviors are familiar or habitual” (Habitual barriers), and “Details of how much to do or how well one is doing in terms of the required behavior are unclear” (lack of information falls under this umbrella). To tackle the barrier of lack of approaches, simplification and framing of information is suggested [26]. This entails highlighting existing alternative options to direct behavior. For instance, stores could have signs in front of products made of bioplastics. Detailed and plenty of verbal cues enable consumers to make green choices [27]. This can help consumers become aware of several unfamiliar alternatives such as bioplastics.
Second, changing default policy was proposed to tackle habitual barriers. Change in default policy means to change the existing status quo and create opportunities where behavior change becomes easier. This can include separating straws from drinking cups [28] or reducing sale of a target product [26]. Considering such measures is essential to support and accelerate consumers’ behavior.
Finally, to combat the barrier of understanding if one’s behavior is effective, communication of reduction targets decided by the municipality, proposing specific actions or lifestyle choices can help consumers set goals and create commitment devices [26]. This educational program itself can be enhanced by suggesting plastic reduction activities or lifestyle choices and by requiring children to look up information about their municipality, recycle targets of their nearby supermarkets.
To solve further problems, consumer education that can constructively appeal to the market and government is also considered necessary, and it is considered to be an important issue in the future.
IGL’s role in enabling plastic reduction actions in the household
As was discussed above in the norms section, children seem to notice more people around them engaging in plastic reduction behavior after the program. Since this program actively facilitates IGL, the observation can be credited to effects of IGL. In this section, the effects will be explored according to frequency and quality of communication. The results of the parents post-questionnaire, interviews and workbook and questionnaire answers were used to analyze the effect of IGL.
Communication frequency
In communication frequency, it was observed that increase in social issues-based conversations saw an increase in both the child’s and the parents’ behavior. Social issues in this research mostly concerned plastics issues and reflection of plastic use. Cross-analysis of kids’ behavior and frequency of social issues-based conversation (as reported in the parents’ questionnaire; refer to supplementary figure) shows that among the 5 children who could implement all the actions throughout the week, 2 of their parents reported that frequency increased a lot and 3 parents reported that frequency increased a little. Among the 7 children who could implement most of the actions, 1 of their parents reported that frequency increased a lot and 6 of the parents mentioned that frequency increased a little. Cross-analysis of parents’ behavior and frequency of social issues-based conversation (refer to supplementary figure) revealed that of the 5 parents who could implement all 3 actions, 2 reported that frequency increased a lot and 3 reported that frequency increased a little. Of the 10 parents who could implement most actions, 1 reported that the frequency increased a lot, 8 reported that frequency increased a little, and 1 reported that frequency did not increase.
Most of the conversation topics the parents talked about with their child falls under 2 major categories namely, waste management issues and change of lifestyle. In waste management issues, the conversations centered around the importance of proper segregation and disposal, how waste gets processed after disposal, microplastics, and importance of innovations in plastics. In terms of change in plastic use over time, the conversations centered around how our ancestors lived without plastics. One of the parents quoted the grandmother saying convenience brings inconvenience and mentioned that we must learn from how our ancestors lead their lives.
Parent of sisters Child T (female, elementary school 4th grade) and Child U (female, elementary school 2nd grade) mentioned that while they felt several difficulties such as lack of options in shops, they were motivated to continue the behavior due to understanding the importance of doing so. Child U (female, elementary school 2nd grade) mentioned that their experience of not being able to swim in the sea due to a lot of trash accumulation motivates them to engage in eco-friendly behavior. Hence, first-hand experience and increase in frequency of social issues discussion among the family drives pro-environmental behavior. Thus, in this research, frequency of social issues conversations has a relationship with child’s and parent’s behavior. This result is in congruence with the result from Matthies et al. [29]. Although their research looks at IGL from the point of view of parent to child influence, they confirm that communication between parent and child about environmental needs as well as consequences has a major influence on child’s behavior.
Communication quality
Mission 2 and mission 5, which are specifically designed to foster IGL, were reviewed in detail by the parents. Particularly with mission 5, children deciding the 3 actions along with the parents acts as commitment devices for the family to take part in the behavior. According to Andor and Fels [30], “commitment devices are a set of interventions that allow individuals to lock themselves today into the action that they want to take tomorrow”.
An important trend observed was that when the child proposed and decided the 3 actions by themselves, they were able to implement the behavior better. According to cross-analysis between children’s behavior and decision-making in mission 5 (refer to supplementary figure), among the 5 children who implemented all actions, 2 children decided entirely by themselves, and 2 children proposed ideas which their parents helped improve. 1 child proposed an idea and the entire family decided together.
Children who are given an opportunity by their parents to express their opinions and make their own decision tend to adhere to the goal set by them. The parents also create a cooperative environment by helping the child enact these actions. Since changing behavior was a compulsory part of the educational program, the parents may have been able to cooperate more than they otherwise would have. Thus, educational programs have the potential to enable parents to create a more cooperative environment for their children. Another important trend is that child and parent can induce plastic reduction behavior in each other. Essiz and Mandrik [15] mention in their research that stronger parent–child communication leads to intergenerational similarity which was observed in this study.
The transfer of influence appears to have happened both ways. In some cases, the transfer of influence was seen from child to parent. Child N (male, elementary school 4th grade) mentions that his mother is trying to reduce PET bottle use by making tea at home. The child also mentioned that when his mother was searching for a rug, she found one made of recycled plastics online, indicating that the parent also starts to become aware of plastics through the children’s influence. The parent reported that even after the program, the child continues to remind her about waste segregation. Child I (female, elementary school 5th grade) mentions that her father is also cooperating in bringing his own bottle to work and using wooden stationary. In the last day of monitoring, the child commented that if she reminds him, even her busy father cooperates.
In other cases, like Child W (male, elementary school 6th grade), the mother seems to take the lead role. The child remarks how his mother was the most conscious and even scolded them and their father for not segregating waste properly. In the case of sisters Child X (female, elementary school 6th grade) and Child Y (female, elementary school 4th grade), their mother seemed to cooperate the most and was very proactive. The children often mentioned how their mother was implementing more than them. In the case of sisters, Child T (female, elementary school 4th grade) and Child U (female, elementary school 2nd grade), the parent mentioned that when deciding the 3 actions to reduce plastic waste, they ended up choosing some actions already done in the house by the parent. The parent also mentioned that they usually sent reminders to the children to help overcome habitual barriers. On the other end of the spectrum, parent of Child W (male, elementary school 6th grade) mentioned that seeing their child not being motivated enough made them loose motivation as well. Thus, they did not carry out the pro-environmental behavior. Thus, child’s interest and motivation inform parents’ behavior as well.
Thus, in this research, qualitative analysis shows us that children who make decisions on their own tend to stick with it more as opposed to when it is decided by someone else. Furthermore, parents and children influence one another’s actions. Conversations about social issues drives pro-environmental behavior in this study. This two-way influence contributes to better or lack of pro-environmental behavior. Hence Objective 3 was achieved where IGL contributed to plastic reduction behavior.
Limitations and future implications
This study has the following limitations. First, the population size of the study is small with just 25 children. Due to the small sample size, an age-wise comparison is difficult as it varied from 6 to 14 years. The children who registered all had a high level of interest in plastic issues by default. While this proved useful to test the educational method itself, the results represent a group with high interest in plastic issues. Due to this reason, the data were looked at qualitatively alone. Furthermore, the children also mostly have very supportive parents who were interested in learning. To make the conclusions certain, future studies must consider the sampling method and investigate the issue in a larger population. This study does not have a control group. Therefore, it is imperative that future studies consider this when conducting further research on the effects of intergenerational learning.
This study shows potential of IGL to influence pro-environmental behavior, particularly plastic issues. Although this study did not conduct a formal follow-up study to see the effects of intergenerational learning-maintained overtime, 3 parents reached back to the researchers after a month and reflected upon how they still continue to talk about plastics and employ some actions they began during the program. Future studies can ensure to have follow-up studies to understand the long-term effects of IGL-centered programs.
Conclusion
This research aimed to develop an environmental education home study program that fosters IGL, targeting elementary and junior high school students of Kyoto City, understand if the program can increase student’s personalization of plastic issues and understand if IGL can play a key role in enabling plastic reduction actions in the household.
This research successfully developed an environmental education home study program, fostering intergenerational learning (IGL) among elementary and junior high school students in Kyoto City. The program led to increased personalization of plastic issues among students, with findings indicating a sense of guilt associated with plastic product use and the initiation of behavioral changes. Moreover, parental involvement in social issue-based conversations correlated with increased plastic reduction behavior in both children and parents, demonstrating the potential for IGL to influence household behaviors.
Acknowledgements
This research was performed by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (JPMEERF21S11900) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan provided by Ministry of the Environment Japan.
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The intergenerational learning effects of a home study program for elementary and junior high school children on knowledge and awareness of plastic consumption