Taiwanese Buddhism and Environmentalism: A Mixed Method Study.

Buddhism is often said to be an environment-friendly religion, but this thesis is rarely investigated. In this paper, we employ a mixed-method approach to examine this thesis in the case of Taiwan. We use data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS) and apply qualitative content analysis to examine practices among major Taiwanese Buddhist organizations. The findings suggest: (1) Buddhists in Taiwan engage significantly more in environment-friendly behavior than other religious members, and (2) members of different Buddhist organizations display similar levels of engagement in environment-related behavior. However, (3) Buddhist organizations engage very differently in environment-related activities. (4) Buddhist organizations engage more in nonpolitical environmental activities than they do in politically sensitive ones, and (5) among the four major Buddhist organizations, female-led Buddhist organizations show a higher level of environment-related practices than male-led organizations. 摘要: 在这篇文章中我们结合定性与定量的研究方法检验了一个流行的看法，即佛教是个对环境友善的宗教。我们使用了台湾社会变迁基本调查(TSCS)的调查数据以及收集了台湾主要佛教团体的环保实践与论述。本研究发现：(1)台湾佛教徒相对于其他宗教成员参与更多环境友善的行为;（2）不同佛教团体的成员呈现参与环境相关行为的不同；（3）不同佛教团体参与非常不同类型的环境相关活动；（4）佛教团体参与非政治的环境活动多于政治敏感类环境活动；（5）台湾四大佛教团体里，女性领导的佛教团体参与环境相关活动多过男性领导的佛教团体。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]