Upplevelse av miljöansvar ur ett genusperspektiv -En studie om studenters på Örebro Universitet upplevda miljöansvar

Sammanfattning: Many people in Sweden have big interest in environmental questions regarding our climate. People are concerned about the increasing temperatures and the consequences that comes with it. This leads to more people trying to live sustainable. When trying to live eco-friendlier lots of people are experiencing obstacles which leads to feelings of resistance and unwillingness to change their habits. This study explores how individuals experience their responsibility for the environment. The aim is to investigate the experienced responsibility through a gender perspective. The main questions for this study are how men and women experience their environmental responsibility, how the respondents experience the expectations on men and women to take responsibility for the environment and what factors the respondents experience are affecting their feelings of responsibility towards environment. Previous studies show that social spheres, gender and relations are factors that affect what environmental responsibility a person takes. Our study is based on six qualitative interviews with students at Örebro University. The study shows that all of the respondents feel a responsibility towards the environment and believe that the environmental responsibility can be seen as a trend. The respondents experience that men and women have the same expectations to act responsible towards the environment although this varies depending on area. The respondents experience pressure to act eco-friendly from different kinds of media. The social environment an individual finds themselves in also affects the respondents experience. The thought about the future was one more thing that the respondents experienced affect their feeling of responsibility for the environment. The women in the study were more concerned about future generations and their children than men and they experienced that this affected their feeling of responsibility for the environment. Our research also showed that consumption and the worth this brings to the individual works as a contradictory force which collide with the responsibility an individual feel for the environment.