How people, myself, and perspectives in general affect my research.
By: Bella Gerencser
My research on “How do sustainability education and everyday sustainable practices together influence young people in Spain?” includes many direct and indirect stakeholders. The direct stakeholders that come to mind would be young people in Spain, university students studying in Spain (including study abroad), teachers and professors, universities, local sustainability organizations, businesses promoting sustainability (ex: toogoodtogo), and city governments. These are the people or organizations that directly affect my research. The young people are the main focus of my research as I look for their attitudes toward what I am studying. The study abroad students will provide a new perspective that can be compared to what they are used to at home. Teachers and professors are in charge of delivering sustainability education and understanding their students’ attitudes toward this influence. Universities design sustainability programs and initiatives directly influencing students, such as the summer sustainability engineering courses I am taking. Local sustainability organizations educate the public through campaigns. Businesses, through their services, encourage sustainable behaviors in everyday practices. The city government implements recycling systems and educational programs that young people interact with daily. The indirect stakeholders contribute indirectly to my research/stakeholders. Examples of this include parents, policymakers, or general businesses. Parents influence young people’s sustainable habits and may adopt behaviors themselves. Policymakers can be affected by research such as mine on how initiatives are effective. Businesses can use my research to better understand younger consumers’ purchasing decisions in relation to sustainability.
My connection to the issue is being a study abroad student in Valencia, Spain, studying sustainability in engineering. With this, I get to see the young people’s connection to Spain by being in this group while getting this Spanish sustainability education. Assumptions I had going into this research were how ahead Spain was in sustainability. However, the consensus of Spaniards that I have spoken to is that sustainability is more of a moral obligation rather than a requirement. This shaped my connection to looking at my education in a different light. Rather than seeing the recycling systems as efficient, I see them as a trouble in some people’s days in terms of smell and time to organize. Spain does have a solution to this with a general green recycling bin where others will organize the material for you. Yet some still will not organize trash from recyclable material due to no requirement.
Currently in my research YouTube video script, I have a growing amount of perspectives. Perspectives include study abroad students through interviews, study abroad students in surveys, professors at local universities, professors at my university, sustainability cartoon artists, hospital staff, and a Spanish student in Madrid. Some perspectives I would love to achieve would be an interview with the Oceanographic, which is Europe’s largest aquarium, as well as more Spanish student perspectives. These two perspectives could shape my research well. The aquarium could show how they use their large platform to continuously strive for sustainability and for younger generations. While more Spanish student perspectives are more concrete then us who are studying abroad and have only seen a snippet of Spain’s sustainability.
The relationships I have built have been strong with the help of my sustainability courses. Through these courses, most of our days consist of visiting sustainability centers where we can communicate with Spaniards with professional knowledge of sustainability and young people’s connection to this. I foresee maintaining these relationships, such as with the sustainability cartoon artists, as they shared their whole life stories and how they create cartoons for the public’s awareness. Some, however, such as those made with the ‘Valencia Innovation Capital ’, may be harder due to a language barrier.
HSF House Blogs 