Waste-separation behaviour and environmental education in China, a perspective of primary- and middle-school students and teachers

The research reported in this paper was designed to investigate the interconnection between students’ environmental education (EE) and their waste-separation behaviour, with students’ attitude, knowledge and sense of responsibility being the mediate factors, and explores how EE in schools could be improved. A questionnaire-based survey was employed and the views of 600 primary- and middle-school (PMS) students and 175 teachers in Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, China were obtained. The results indicate that EE in Chinese schools positively affects students’ waste separation behaviour by affecting their attitude to waste separation. But the current EE in Chinese schools has not been able to improve students’ sense of responsibility for environmental protection. The incentives for teachers to include EE in their teaching includes the belief that EE in school would pass environmental knowledge to the students and cultivate their pro-environmental attitude which would eventually benefit the environment and society in the long run and the school’s requirement of using EE in the classroom. The main barriers are the schools’ neglect of EE and the teachers’ lack of EE knowledge. Suggestions for teachers and policy-makers at school level and local government level are put forward to improve EE in school and thereby improve students’ waste separation behaviour.