Secondary school youth and the idea of sustainable development - opinions and attitudes

The main aim of the paper was to systematize the opinions and attitudes of school youth towards the idea of sustainable development. The research was conducted between 2016 and 2017 in Lesser Poland Province. The data was gathered in two ways: by handing out printed questionnaire forms among secondary school students and by distributing the forms in an electronic form among school youth. Taking into account the type of school, education profile and year in a school, responses to questions about the knowledge of the concept of sustainable development, the associations it brings to the mind and the need to implement it were analysed. The data was processed using pivot tables prepared in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The survey results pointed out marginalisation of the issues of sustainable development in secondary education: students rarely encountered this term (both in their life and education) and were unable to provide its proper definition. The respondents most often associated the term “sustainable development” with social justice and environmental protection. Due to educational gaps, the majority of the respondents did not know whether sustainable development was needed.