SURVEY ON STUDENTS' AWARENESS ON THE ENVIRONMENT FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF CONSUMER EDUCATION

本研究的目的是通过问卷调查的方法，从消费者教育的角度，运用因子分析的方法，对大学生的环境意识水平进行调查和分析。调查问卷由68个问题组成，包括学生对环境问题的认知、他们作为绿色消费者的日常行为、环境问题的信息来源、环境问题应采取的措施、以及学生对日本向循环型社会运动的看法。调查于2002年12月进行，调查对象包括青森市376名初中生、崎玉县和佐市396名初中生以及东京都506名高中生。调查结果如下：a)60%至80%的学生认为环境问题严重。B)80%的学生依赖大众传媒作为环境问题的信息来源，30%至50%的学生依赖学校的学习活动。c)在污染控制政策方面，50%的学生支持监管手段来保护环境，尽管社会上对使用基于市场的激励措施来保护环境的辩论越来越多。d)学生对循环型社会的运动有各种想法，但他们对这样一个社会的形象是支离破碎的，因此，加深学生对可持续发展的理解，鼓励他们对以循环为基础的社会的含义有一个连贯的概念，并阐明在这样一个社会中的生活方式，变得越来越重要。

The purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze students' awareness levels of environmental issues from the viewpoint of consumer education through the questionnaire method with factor analysis. The questionnaire consisted of 68 questions concerning students' recognition of environmental issues, their daily behavior as green consumers, information sources for environmental issues, the measures to be taken for environmental problems, and students' ideas concerning Japan's movement toward a Recycling-based Society.The survey was conducted in December 2002 including 376 junior high school students in Aomori City and 396 in Kazo City, Saitama Prefecture, as well as 506 senior high school students in Tokyo. The results were as follows:a) 60 to 80 % of students regard environmental problems as serious. However, excluding electrical energy-saving actions, only 10 to 20 % take the simple steps as consumers to protect and conserve their environment in their daily lives.b) 80 % of students depend on mass media as their information sources for environmental issues while 30 to 50 % depend on the learning activities at schools.c) Relating to the pollution control policies, 50 % of students support the regulatory approach to conserve the environment, although in society there is an increasing debate on the use of the market-based incentives to protect the environment.d) Students have various ideas related to the movement toward a Recycling-based Society, but their images of such a society are fragmentary, as the factor analysis illustrates.Therefore, it is becoming more important to deepen students' understanding of sustainability, and encourage each of them to have a coherent idea of what a Recycling-based Society entails and clarify the ways of living in such a society.