The Study of Attitude of Korean Parents on Environmental Education for Their Elementary Children

자녀의 환경교육에 대한 초등학교 학부모의 의식 연구 - 수도권 거주 학부모를 대상으로 -

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes of Korean parents on environmental education for their elementary children. To accomplish of this purpose, a questionnaire survey was administered to 231 (55 males, 176 females) parents from elementary school in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, Korea. The self-reported Environmental Education Attitude Scale was revised and adopted to measure the difference among children's grade, gender, and age of parents. The SPSS 12.0 program was used to analyze the data. The major finding of this study represented that elementary parents have a great understanding about the importance of environmental education. Through the analyses, this study found several things. 1) There were significant differences among grade and age in the necessity of environmental education. However, there were no gender differences in this field. In other words, parents have strong agreement with the necessity of environmental education in childhood. 2) There were significant differences among grade in the effect of environmental education. However, there were no gender and age differences in this area. 3) There were significant differences among grade and gender in proper areas of environmental education according to academic years. However, there was no significant age difference in this questionnaire. 4) There were significant differences among grade, gender, and age group in the level of environmental education. 5) There were significant differences among grade, gender, and age in the subject for environmental education. Further implications and limitations of this study were discussed.