| Drawing on research in political socialization, environmental attitudes, and knowledge acquisition, this study assesses what American high school seniors know about the environment and where that knowledge originates. This study provides a new perspective for understanding how young people learn about the environment. Whereas many previous studies consider how short environmental programs directly affect environmental knowledge, I employ the Exposure-Selection Model of learning to compare the varying influence of factors related to school and curriculum, family, individual achievement and one's background. The data, a nationally representative sample of American high school seniors, are from the 1994 and 2001 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) geography assessments.;The results presented here confirm that socialization is the result of several factors. The profiles of environmental learning show that school-related factors are not the only source for environmental knowledge acquisition. Despite the recent focus on school-oriented environmental education, the findings suggest that relying solely on the school for environmental learning might not be sufficient. The overall significance of these findings as well as suggestions for future research are also addressed. |
