Social Science Perspectives on Environment, Climate and Sustainability

In this course, students learn about social science perspectives, traditions, and schools that connect people, organizations, and institutions to environmental, climate, and sustainability issues.

The course is based on the fact that climate change and environmental destruction are the major societal challenges of our time. These affect societies and people differently and create room for new and intensified inequality and polarization between groups, religions and nations.

The challenge we face as a society is twofold: How to deal with the consequences we are already seeing today, and how to develop sustainable societies that safeguard democratic ideals and trust in the long term?

In the course, we discuss a) causes and barriers in environmental and climate issues b) how narratives and perceptions about environmental and climate issues are created through social organization, media, politics and science c) rights and inequality, and 4) how theories of social change can help us understand this.

The students learn about how values affect the understanding of climate and the environment, theories about how societies can change, and how change can be understood as the interaction between individuals' practices, organization, social structure, technology, media and politics. We discuss the many roles of science related to nature, climate and the environment, and the concept of sustainability and the inherent controversies of the Sustainable Development Goals. The students learn about the risks and uncertainties caused by climate and environmental issues, and the role this plays for both long-term societal changes and society's ability to deal with rights issues, polarization and conflict.

The course integrates perspectives and methods from sociology, political science, media studies and organizational studies.

The course offers research-based and varied teaching that integrates academic content and methodological training in current and controversial issues.

• The teaching combines lectures, discussions, group work and practical projects where a relevant climate and/or environmental challenge is mapped and analyzed. A field trip may be relevant.
• The course encourages interactive learning through debate and joint reading and dissemination of academic texts.

Overall, the course provides students with both theoretical and analytical competence and practical tools to work with sustainability, climate and environmental issues in a broad field of practice, both within and outside academia.

Knowledge - the student shall:​​​

• have in-depth knowledge of different social science approaches to environmental, climate and sustainability issues.
• understand how different knowledge regimes compete and cooperate in the field of climate and the environment.
• be able to formulate and analyze social science-relevant issues about climate, environment and sustainability.
• be able to present knowledge and advice on measures and instruments in a structured and popularized manner.

Skills - the student shall demonstrate the ability to:

• be able to develop a project within a current environmental and/or climate debate, and communicate this in writing and orally.
• be able to reflect orally on the perspectives and own work in the course.

Lectures and seminars. If six or fewer students sign up for a planned course during the first two teaching weeks, the course will be offered as an instructed reading course.