How Ugandan children deal with emotions concerning local environmental problems

Abstract: In current media and within coping research related to environmental problems many voices are emphasizing the danger of students being left in despair after have learned about environmental issues. The present study examined the effects on students who had participated in environmental education that originally was implemented through a sustainable development project. Qualitative interviews were conducted in order to investigate which environmental problems the students emphasized. The different coping strategies students used in order to deal with worries concerning these issues were identified through a thematic analysis of transcribed interviews. The findings of the present study showed that the Ugandan students were worried about themselves and their closest being affected by locally created environmental problems. They generally expressed to handle these worries by performing and planning for actions to decrease impact of the problems or by trusting politicians, environmental organizations and education and these actors ability to solve these issues. The Ugandan children showed to possibly have come some steps towards being action competent, were partly hopeful about the future environment and some of them possibly had a belief that they could make a difference to the outcome of these problems. The results were analyzed in relation to theories about coping and hope which could be related to environmental problems. The findings were also discussed in relation to a theory about action competence and similar studies about children’s coping with global issues made in countries all over the world. The importance of an environmental education that gives hope to students was highlighted. In parallel, a more local perspective in Swedish environmental education together with an enlargement of Swedish students’ relation to nature was suggested to improve students will and ability to act in solving environmental problems.