Teachers' conceptions about nature and environment partially contradict ecofeminism theory

The purpose of this study is to compare ecofeminism theory with teachers’ conceptions about nature and environment. One of the claims of ecofeminism is that women have a special connection to nature, and that women are more cautious than men about nature and nature’s resources. This claim was evaluated from teachers’ answers to a questionnaire about nature and environment. This questionnaire has been used in other studies within the Biohead-Citizen project. Forty-six questions about nature and environment were picked out from a total of 173. Answers from most questions were given on a Likert-scale (four options). A total of 1109 female and male teachers and teacher students from Sweden and France participated. The following analyzing instruments were used: Between analyses, Monte-Carlo permutation test and Pearson’s Chi-square test. Analyses from comparisons between women and men showed that few of the answers significantly differed between the sexes, giving only a little support to ecofeminism theory, while most of the answers expressed no gender difference. Greater differences were seen from the comparison between the two countries. Results presented here indicate that, in Sweden and in France, only few female and male teachers’ conceptions about nature and environment differ significantly, showing a partial accordance with the ecofeminist theory, women being a little more in interplay with nature than men. More results from this study do not support that statement. To our knowledge this is the first time this part of ecofeminism theory is evaluated. BIOHEAD-Citize