Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Social learning and sustainable development

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 5–7 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

To understand what social learning approaches can offer the sciences of adaptation and mitigation, we need to assemble an appropriate evidence base.

Research-for-development institutions such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, CGIAR and their partners are under mounting external pressure from donors to link knowledge to actions that achieve substantive, long-lasting and demonstrable development outcomes1. If research is genuinely to result in beneficial changes in behaviour, policies and institutions, research outputs need to be much better informed by and engaged with the processes through which individuals, communities and societies learn and adapt their behaviour in the face of change2,3. Social learning approaches may be able to contribute substantially to this aim4. Definitions vary, but in a nutshell social learning approaches facilitate knowledge sharing, joint learning and knowledge co-creation between diverse stakeholders around a shared purpose, taking learning and behavioural change beyond the individual to networks and systems. Through an iterative process of working together — engaged in interactive dialogue, exchange, learning, action, reflection and continuing partnership — new shared ways of gaining knowledge emerge that lead to changes in practice5. As such, social learning builds on well-established traditions from participatory development, but puts learning and collective change at the centre of engagement. Social learning can provide a way to address complex socio-ecological (so-called wicked) problems by integrating diverse knowledge and value systems at many different levels and through different learning cycles.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: An evaluative framework for assembling an evidence base on the impacts of social learning.

References

  1. Clark, W. C. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0900231108 (2011).

  2. Cash, D. W. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 100, 8086–8091 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Kristjanson, P. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 5047–5052 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Collins, K. & Ison, R. Environ. Policy Gov. 19, 358–373 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Reed, M. et al. Ecol. Soc. 15, r1 (December 2010).

  6. Shaw, A. & Kristjanson, P. Catalysing Learning for Development and Climate Change: An Exploration of Social Learning and Social Differentiation in CGIAR (CCAFS, 2013); http://go.nature.com/A42JLz

    Google Scholar 

  7. Tschakert, P. & Dietrich, K. A. Ecol. Soc. 15, 1 (June 2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Rodela, R. Ecol. Soc. 16, 30 (December 2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Harvey, B. et al. Social Learning in Practice: A Review of Lessons, Impacts and Tools for Climate Change (CCAFS, 2013); http://go.nature.com/8nuYdm

    Google Scholar 

  10. Armitage, D., Marschke, M. & Plummer, R. Glob. Environ. Change 18, 86–98 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Muro, M. & Jeffrey, P. J. Environ. Plan. Manage. 51, 325–344 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Cundill, G. et al. NJAS-Wagen. J. Life Sci. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2013.04.001 (2013).

  13. Bidwell, D., Dietz, T. & Scavia, D. Nature Clim. Change 3, 610–611 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Duveskog, D., Friis-Hansen, E. & Taylor, E. J. Dev. Stud. 47, 1529–1544 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Van Etten, J. IDS Bull. 42, 102–110 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Decision-making for Climate Resilient Livelihoods and Risk Reduction: A Participatory Scenario Planning Approach (CARE International, 2013); http://go.nature.com/TNDeeB

  17. Chaudury, M., Vervoort, J., Kristjanson, P., Ericksen, P. & Ainslie, A. Reg. Environ. Change 13, 389–398 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This commentary was produced as part of a continuing social learning process — the Climate Change and Social Learning initiative (http://ccsl.wikispaces.com) — in which knowledge is being co-constructed through many different channels. We are very grateful to everyone who has participated in this process so far and to those who continue to do so. The Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Program is funded by the CGIAR Fund, AusAid, Danish International Development Agency, Environment Canada, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Irish Aid, Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Government of Russia, UK Aid and the European Union, with technical support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Program, World Agroforestry Centre, PO Box 30677, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya

    Patti Kristjanson

  2. Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia, International Development Research Centre, PO Box 8500, Ottawa, K1G 3H9, Canada

    Blane Harvey

  3. International Institute for Environment and Development, 80–86 Gray's Inn Road, London, WC1X 8NH, UK

    Marissa Van Epp

  4. CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Program, International Livestock Research Institute, PO Box 30709, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya

    Philip K. Thornton

Authors
  1. Patti Kristjanson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Blane Harvey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Marissa Van Epp
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Philip K. Thornton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Patti Kristjanson.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kristjanson, P., Harvey, B., Van Epp, M. et al. Social learning and sustainable development. Nature Clim Change 4, 5–7 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2080

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2080

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing