Lay views of energy conservation in Britain: The significant case of primary school teachers

How and what do British primary school teachers think about conserving energy? This paper contains a limited, but detailed, attempt to answer this question. This is presented by reporting a case study of views expressed by staff in ten different schools in one particular local education authority. Government in Britain has aspirations that children should be encouraged through their formal schooling to adopt pro-conservation attitudes and behaviour. Teachers' own responses to conservation may be of significance as to whether this will happen. It is concluded that the teachers investigated do not, at present, spontaneously cast themselves in the rôle which government wishes them to play. Moreover, they also tend to hold a definition of [`]energy conservation' which stands at variance with that which predominates among local and central government officials. This divergence in the meanings they attribute to the phrase may make it difficult for these two groups to agree about the circumstances in which energy should be conserved, both in school buildings and elsewhere.