Diversity Beyond Demographics: Environmental Worldviews of Forestry and
Natural Resource Undergraduate Students
Abstract
In U.S. academic institutions, efforts often concentrate on enhancing
the recruitment of students from underrepresented groups, focusing on
gender and/or race. Yet, non-demographic forms of diversity have
received little attention, such as environmental worldviews, i.e.,
differences in the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical beliefs
that define how humans view, value, and interact with the natural world.
Here, we develop an exploratory measure of environmental worldview
diversity among undergraduate students enrolled in natural resource
related programs. We tested our procedure at Oregon State University, a
large public land-grant university in the US. Many students reported
metaphysical, epistemological, and/or ethical beliefs that deviate from
what has been philosophically characterized as the dominant western
worldview of natural resources (anthropocentric, dualistic,
hierarchical, utilitarian, mechanistic). Our results suggest that,
although forestry students’ environmental worldviews are in some ways
more closely aligned with the dominant western worldview than other
students in natural resources, generally their worldviews reflect
long-term generational shifts away from a strict resource-commodity
value orientation, as documented in past research. Our findings
highlight the importance of considering environmental worldviews as a
dimension of diversity within the new generation natural resource
students. Future efforts toward understanding these levels of difference
can be important assets in designing programs which appeal to wide
variety of students; ultimately helping efforts to recruit and retain a
diverse of aspiring natural resource professionals.