1999 / Development, Culture

The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture

Citation

Kahn, P. H. (1999). The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture. MIT Press.

Link to file

Two children throw fall leaves at each other As environmental problems become more urgent, there’s a growing need to better understand how people come to care about nature in the first place. In this work, Peter Kahn takes on that challenge through a series of long-term research studies that explore how humans—especially children—develop their relationship with the natural world.

Over eight years, Kahn studied children, young adults, and parents in very different settings, from a low-income Black community in Houston to a remote village in the Brazilian Amazon. By talking directly with people in these places, he set out to answer some big questions:

  • How do people value nature, and how do they reason morally about environmental degradation?
  • Do children have a deep connection to the natural world that gets severed by modern society? Or do such connections emerge, if at all, later in life, with increased cognitive and moral maturity?
  • How does culture affect environmental commitments and sensibilities?
  • Are there universal features in the human relationship with nature?

Kahn’s findings draw on ideas and evidence from many fields, including psychology, biology, education, environmental studies, and moral development. Together, they offer a richer picture of how people think about, value, and relate to the natural world over the course of their lives.

Written in an accessible style, this book is useful not only for researchers and professionals working in social science and environmental fields, but also for anyone with an interest in environmental issues, child development, or the future of our relationship with nature.

Abstract

Urgent environmental problems call for vigorous research and theory on how humans develop a relationship with nature. In a series of original research projects, Peter Kahn answers this call. For the past eight years, Kahn has studied children, young adults, and parents in diverse geographical locations, ranging from an economically impoverished black community in Houston to a remote village in the Brazilian Amazon. In these studies Kahn seeks answers to the following questions:

  • How do people value nature, and how do they reason morally about environmental degradation?
  • Do children have a deep connection to the natural world that gets severed by modern society? Or do such connections emerge, if at all, later in life, with increased cognitive and moral maturity?
  • How does culture affect environmental commitments and sensibilities?
  • Are there universal features in the human relationship with nature?

Kahn’s empirical and theoretical findings draw on current work in psychology, biology, environmental behavior, education, policy, and moral development.

This scholarly yet accessible book will be of value to practitioners in the social science and environmental fields, as well as to informed generalists interested in environmental issues and children.