Educating children to educate their families: information, knowledge and experience diffusion within the family for sustainable lifestyles

This research study focuses on children’s influence on parents’ pro-environmental behaviour,
motivated by a long-term environmental education programme. This locus of interest has been
approached from four different views (experts, teachers, parents and children), applying
innovative methods for data collection and analysis. This study is framed by the literature on
environmental education and education for sustainable development, as well as by the
literature related to children’s influence on parents’ pro-environmental behaviour. Moreover,
this framework is also complemented by the literature on children’s role in family decisionmaking
process and influence on parents in general.
This study makes methodological, theoretical and empirical contributions. More specifically,
the methodological novelties lie in the use of innovative data collection methods and a
differentiated approach of the topic which constitutes the methodology of the research. The
theoretical contribution of this study regards the development of the ‘Children’s confidenceinfluence
model’ that explains an ongoing feedback process based on the impact of children’s
confidence in their knowledge and ability to influence, on their parents’ perceptions of their
children’s influence.
The empirical originality of this study lies in the fact that it is the first to address the topic of
inter-generational influence in the context of education for sustainable development as a
central focus. Moreover, this research study presents a classification of children’s influence on
their parents’ pro-environmental behaviour based on parents’ own perceptions of their
children’s influence.