Influence of academic education vs. common culture on the climate literacy of university students / Formación académica frente a cultura común en la alfabetización climática de estudiantes universitarios

Abstract

Abstract This article compares the level of climate literacy observed among university students enrolled on different academic courses, sampled at the start and end of their degrees (N = 1,149). The study involved distributing a questionnaire about various scientific topics related to Climate Change (CC) and aims to analyse the extent to which differences can be attributed to the influence of the social representations of common culture or to the scientific education received during their academic studies. The initial assumption made is that students who study natural science or engineering degrees and those who are in the final years of their degree course should be significantly more competent regarding the questions made to them than students studying social sciences or humanities and those who are at the start of their university degree. The weight of common culture is also noted as the decisive factor in predominant social representations.