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Formal education and disaster response of children: evidence from coastal villages in Indonesia

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Abstract

Although children are exposed to a high mortality risk during disasters, what determines their disaster response, especially during earthquakes, remains largely unexplored. The goal of this study is to examine the association between formal education and earthquake response. Using a unique survey collected from elementary school students in the coastal villages of Indonesia, we show that students’ attitude to learning science is positively associated with their risk perception, perceived coping ability, knowledge about the disaster mechanism and response, and propensity to respond appropriately. Parents’ disaster experience also significantly affects these outcomes. In contrast, attitude to religious class explains none of outcomes. Locus of control is associated with perception and knowledge, but not the response. Our findings suggest that the effects of education on the disaster mortality of children could vary with the school curriculum.

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Notes

  1. A cognitive bias is defined as “a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations, leading to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality” (Kahneman and Tversky 1972).

  2. UNISDR initiated a campaign, Disaster risk reduction begins at school, in 2006 (UNISDR 2006). Global agreements such as the Hyogo Framework for Action and Sustainable Development Goals also emphasize the importance of education in achieving disaster risk reduction.

  3. Qualitative studies on Indonesian children include Taylor (2011).

  4. The Protective Action Decision Model (Lindell and Hwang 2008; Lindell and Perry 2004) and Social-Cognitive Preparation (Paton 2003; Paton et al. 2005) also consider similar frameworks.

  5. Maladaptive responses including ignoring an evacuation order and staying home cause intrinsic and extrinsic rewards such as physical pleasure and approval from community members.

  6. The island is located 100 km east of Sunda Trench, the boundary between the Eurasian Plate (Sunda Plate) and Australian Plate (Sahul Shelf). This exposes the island to a high risk of earthquake and tsunami (Hsu et al. 2006).

  7. The non-response rate is 13%. This is mainly because some students could not commute to the school on the survey day because of heavy rain.

  8. This is a modified version of the question used in the Program for International Student Assessment 2015 (PISA).

  9. Previous studies show the significant effect of disaster experience on disaster awareness and preparedness (Mulilis et al. 1990; Shaw et al. 2004). Those with an internal locus also have a better attitude to and higher knowledge of disaster preparation (López-Vázquez and Marván 2012; McClure et al. 1999).

  10. This means that the observable variables are at least as important as the unobservable ones.

  11. Simeulue Island has an oral history that encourages prompt evacuation to the upland when feeling earthquakes. As a result, most villagers in the coastal areas reacted appropriately during the 2004 tsunami, and only seven were killed, even though the island is located only 60 km from the epicenter (McAdoo et al. 2006).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mayuko Onuki and Mai Seki. This paper also benefited from the comments of seminar participants at the Annual Meeting of Theoretical Economics and Agriculture, and JICA. The usual disclaimers apply.

Funding

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grants Number 16K03657 (PI: Masahiro Shoji) supported this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Masahiro Shoji

  2. Centre for Asian Area Studies, Rikkyo University, 3-34-1 Nishi-ikebukuro, , Toshima-ku, Tokyo, 171-8501, Japan

    Yoko Takafuji

  3. Credit Risk Analysis and Environmental Review Department, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Nibancho Center Building, 5-25, Niban-cho , Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 102-8012, Japan

    Tetsuya Harada

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  1. Masahiro Shoji
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Appendix

Appendix

See Fig. 1 and Table 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8

Table 4 School characteristics
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Table 5 Questions for LOC
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Table 6 Description of outcome variables
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Table 7 Estimation result of probit model
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Table 8 The association between perception and knowledge and disaster response
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Shoji, M., Takafuji, Y. & Harada, T. Formal education and disaster response of children: evidence from coastal villages in Indonesia. Nat Hazards 103, 2183–2205 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-04077-7

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