Beyond critical education for sustainable consumption

Abstract This paper empirically supports environmental courses and activities based upon ‘parental altruism’ as an effective environmental education in developing citizen’s pro-environmental values, attitudes, and behaviors. This is a case study of the Homemaker’s Union Consumer Cooperation (HUCC), a prominent environmental consumer non-profit organization in Taiwan with over 70000 members. Re-examining Paulo Freire’s critical dialogical pedagogy, this study uses Paul Stern’s three levels of value orientation to investigate changes of HUCC members’ consumption behaviors. The courses and activities with parental-care are efficiently received by members than those of critical knowledge with the environment in terms of developing pro-environmental behaviors. Parental altruism is the key in changing consumer’s environmental values. This finding contributes to rethinking the meaning of dialogue in environmental education.