Intergenerational Transmission of Pro-Environmental Values and Lifestyles: How Is the Ecological Habitus Reproduced?

As Haluza-DeLay wrote, “a crucial goal for formation of a more sustainable society is an ecologically appropriate logic of practice living environmentally without trying which is founded upon the routinization embodied in an ecological habitus” (2008: 206). While in recent decades sociological studies have explored pro-environmental practices and more sustainable lifestyles, the resilience of such lifestyles and their reproduction has been under-researched; there are relatively few empirical studies on the endurance and intergenerational adoption of an “ecological habitus.” Our paper is based on data from the third wave of the unique longitudinal qualitative research (1992, 2002, 2015) on households and individuals living in voluntary modesty, reducing their consumption on an everyday basis (Librová 1999; 2008). We focus particularly on the everyday practices and routines of the grown children of the original participants in the sample from 1992 and 2002. We ask whether and how the children reproduce the value orientation of their parents, or define their own, and how they relate to their parents´ lifestyles under changing socio-economic and cultural conditions. Adopting the technique of in-depth biographical interviews and observation in households, we focus specifically on aspects of everyday consumption practices (household furnishings, leisure time activities, daily shopping and alimentation, etc.) in the context of their reflections on childhood in voluntarily modest households.