Socjologiczne aspekty badania świadomości ekologicznej

The sociological aspects of researches of ecological awareness

It is possible to say about ecological awareness while we’re able to observe the existence of real contact within given community or if we assume its existence at least. In other cases it will simply fix the sum of individual states of consciousness, which do not form a self-contained whole. It will be a static category, not social [Górka and others 2001]. An ecological awareness comes into being in the process of acquaintance with nature and searching human place in natural environment. It is gained in the processes of social socialization with other elements of culture [Sadowski 2000]. In sociology the division of three periods: period of popular ecological awareness, next, period of shaping ideological elements and period of educational ecological awareness formulated under pro-ecological education and knowledge is very popular. The scientific research the state and the period of society’s ecological awareness can be carried out both by means of systematic or fragmentary sociological researches or by studies about social conflicts or ecological movements. However it’s considered that sociologists are not right when they affirm that it’s possible to acquire the scientific awareness totally deprived ideological elements because when ecological awareness should be shaped first it is necessary to determine relations man-environment, which determination is a fundamental assumption of philosophical nature. The basic difficulty in sociological research of ecological awareness is the lack of inner cohesion in given opinions and people attitudes. It results from this sphere that ecological awareness occurs in two forms: awareness only in declared form and realized awareness that is really enters into life. The level of compliance between these kinds of awareness depend on human social surroundings and exerted social pressure. According to Galińskiego [2008] ”dissonance between verbal behaviours and real ones in ecological sphere and preferences for instrumental ecological values make the expression of careless attitude of polish society against surroundings at all – not only against natural environment”. In Poland only in eighties in twelve century researches with the aim of acquaintance the awareness of society started to be carried out. From that time many significant sociological researches have been carried out, but none of them haven’t proved the problem fully.

Poziom świadomości ekologicznej w Polsce uznawany jest za jeden z najniższych w Europie. Wynika to z braku oceny istniejącej sytuacji oraz faktu, że większość społeczeństwa nie widzi konieczności osobistego zaangażowania w tę problematykę. Nierzadko odpowiedzialność za stan przyrody zrzucana jest głównie na: naukowców, polityków czy ruchy ekologiczne. Tak więc znajomość stanu świadomości ekologicznej społeczeństwa odgrywa ważną rolę w programowaniu polityki ekologicznej państwa i wyborze narzędzi jej praktycznej realizacji.