Acceso usuarios
María Dolores Palacios Madero, Susana Torío López, María Ángeles Murga Menoyo
La familia juega un papel fundamental tanto en la socialización como en la configuración de valores en menores y adolescentes.
Esta investigación estudia las percepciones del estudiantado adolescente sobre prácticas parentales y valores familiares e identifica las conductas prosostenibilidad de dicho estudiantado en una triple perspectiva: reducir, reutilizar y reciclar (3R). La población diana es el estudiantado de bachillerato de la ciudad de Cuenca (Ecuador). El análisis de datos incluye: comparación de medias, coeficiente de correlación r de Pearson y regresión lineal simple. Los resultados señalan que las mujeres y los varones adolescentes del estudio perciben un elevado apoyo parental a su autonomía y que las madres conceden mayor importancia al valor de ayuda a los demás. Adicionalmente, un alto porcentaje de los sujetos realizan al menos una acción de las 3R. Se concluye que la muestra percibe a la familia como un agente impulsor de su desarrollo como sujetos autónomos, un factor prometedor para la integración de valores y el desarrollo de competencias para la sostenibilidad; sin embargo, reconoce que la escuela es donde se fragua su compromiso con un futuro sostenible con más intensidad.
The family plays a fundamental role both in socialization and in the configuration of values in minors and adolescents; including those related to environmental care. In keeping with this premise, Unicef (2018) announced that the sustainable development of the planet requires counting on families; it pointed them out as essential collaborators of governments for the quality of life of future generations.
Considered a natural and elemental unit of all modern societies and an educational agent of the first order for the development and psychosocial adjustment of its members, the family is also a primary socialization agent (Fontana-Abad, Gil y Reyero, 2013). It plays a key role in the internalization of prosocial values, such as self-transcendence (care and universalism) and conservation (conformity, safety, and tradition); values closely related to pro-environmental behaviors (Barrera-Hernández, Sotelo, Echeverría y Tapia, 2020).
Following this line, this research studies the perceptions that adolescents have about family values, parental support for autonomy, and environmental care practices, according to the 3R rule, in a triple perspective: reduce, reuse, and recycle. It uses a quantitative, descriptive, and relational methodology.
The target population was high school adolescents from the city of Cuenca (Ecuador).
The sample was made up of 122 adolescents which attended three schools: one private educational unit (36.1 %) and two public (27.9 % and 36.1 %). Of the respondents, 38.8 % were female and 61.2 % were male, and they all were between 15 and 19 years old (M = 16.4; SD = 1.2); 27 % were in their first year of high school (15-17 years), 44.3 % were in their second year of high school (16-18 years) and the 28.7 % were in their third year (17-19 years). Data analysis includes comparison of means, Pearson’s r correlation coefficient and simple linear regression.
The results indicate that a high percentage of the adolescents in the study carry out at least one of the following environmental care actions (these are organized from highest to lowest frequency): saving water and electricity consumption, using garbage cans, reusing bottles, separating garbage, and participating in actions in favor of environment. Likewise, it is detected that they perceive family as a driving agent for their development as autonomous subjects, and a promising factor for the process of integration of values and the development of competencies for caring for the environment; however, they still recognize the school as the place where their commitment to a sustainable future is most intensely forged. Additionally, the adolescents in the study perceive a high parental support for their autonomy and, likewise, that mothers attach greater importance to the value of helping others, a central axis in the ethics of care that characterizes the paradigm of sustainability.
This research corroborated, once again, the ONU’s (2015) position when it indicates that the family is a main agent of change for sustainability, with a decisive influence on the preservation of life and ecosystems. It endorses the relevance of promoting educational strategies that promote family-school relations in order to enhance the role of the former in the acquisition of pro-environmental values and, ultimately, its collaboration in the quality of formal education aimed at sustainability. With these results, a path is opened to improve the knowledge on the parental role in relation to the promotion of behaviors of environmental care (pro-sustainability), within the framework of adolescents’ and young people’s formal education.
