A Survey of Perception, Knowledge, Awareness, and attitude in Regard to Environmental Problems in a Sample of two Different Social Groups in Jakarta, Indonesia

A quantitative study was conducted in 1998 to investigate differences in perception, knowledge, awareness, and attitude with regard to environmental problems between educated and community groups and to identify human-dimension factors to improve public perception, knowledge, awareness, and attitude in relation to global environmental conservation concerns in developing countries. Educated and community groups in Jakarta were interviewed, and data obtained from a total of 537 males aged 30-49 years were analyzed. The data were evaluated by the chi-squared test and logistic regression was applied after factor analysis. The results show that: (1) The perception, knowledge, awareness, and attitude of educated subjects in regard to regional and global environmental problems were much better than those of subjects in the community group; (2) The highest 'yes' response in the community group was in regard to perception of AIDS (82.9%). Few subjects in the community group knew the effects and the cause or source of environmental problems, however, they were well informed about AIDS (86.4% for effects and 93.9% for cause or source). The conclusions are: (1) subjects in the educated group had better perception, more detailed knowledge, were more aware, and had better attitudes in regard to regional and global environmental problems than those in the community group; (2) more education is needed to develop environmental actions and ethics in developing countries; (3) non-formal environmental education through popular mass media should be used more widely and frequently, and more detailed information on the environment should be provided to literate people by newspapers and other means.