Social learning in conservation and natural resource management: taking a sociocultural perspective

This post introduces a recently published paper authored by Christopher Jadallah and Heidi Ballard. You can access the full paper, published on Ecology and Society, here.

Successful conservation and natural resource management initiatives require the collaboration of multiple actors who learn from each others’ perspectives. It is through this learning that there are opportunities for social-ecological systems to become more resilient in the face of environmental change. As a result, better understanding the conditions that foster social learning has emerged as a growing area of interest for researchers in the conservation social sciences. This article synthesizes the value of sociocultural learning theories for social learning research, outlining the ways in which they can offer the conceptual and analytical tools to advance scholarship in this critical area.