Intergenerational Social Perceptions of the Energy Context as Based for Designing Educational Structures That Promote Sustainability and High Social Participation

Abstract

To support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations, several important aspects are required, among which the active participation of society in initiatives and project development can be highlighted. In particular, the social perception of the energy sector can be understood as the social opinion related to the acceptance, appropriation, and social trust regarding the actions developed by the private and public sectors in the energy framework. Given the above, a quantitative and exploratory study has been carried out on the intergenerational social perception of the energy context, to obtain results that will allow the identification of starting points for improving the formal, informal, and non-formal structure of social education on sustainability (particularly concerning the energy sector and energy poverty) for different segments of the population, namely the Centennials, Millennials, Generation X and Baby Boomers. An important result to highlight is that the public opinion of citizens belonging to the Centennial Generation is extremely representative. Meanwhile, the opinions of previous generations, such as Generation Millennials, Generation X, and Generation Baby Boomers, have less influence on public opinion. Finally, this research also addresses the challenges and opportunities regarding the development of interdisciplinary educational projects to improve the energy indicators of the development of interdisciplinary educational projects to improve the energy indicators of the region considering the intergenerational aspects.