Complementary interactional contexts facilitate learning about the environment in everyday life
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12950415 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicole M Ardoin (0000-0002-3290-8211, Stanford University, corresponding author), R K Gould (0000-0002-6307-8783, University of Vermont), Deborah J Wojcik (0000-0003-4723-4472, Cluster in Biomedicine), Mele Wheaton (0000-0001-8891-8577, Stanford University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-02-23 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sustainability Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1862-4057 • E-ISSN: 1862-4065 |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11625-026-01816-w |
| OpenAlex | W7131130665 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 50 |
To address today’s sustainability challenges and move toward societal transformation, people must continually learn about and develop skills to enact effective, informed change. Only a small portion of any human’s lifespan is spent in formal education; thus, it is critical to explore the daily-life interactional contexts in which people learn—i.e., gain awareness, conceptual knowledge, and procedural skills to take action—with regard to environmental issues. Yet, to date, little attention has focused on where and when people learn about the environment and are motivated to make change through the course of everyday-life activities. We therefore pursued a study exploring such questions using modified focus groups (“community listening sessions”) that involved more than 100 participants from the San Francisco Bay ecoregion of California (USA). We built upon an existing framework of sociocultural learning to distinguish nine key interactional contexts, six of which were previously developed and three we added to reflect the unique nature of environmental learning. These interactional contexts are: distributed resources (e.g., internet, books); informal institutions (e.g., museums, aquariums); laws and policies; the biophysical environment; family; community members; school; friends/peers; and work. We call for more scholarly and practitioner attention to these settings as we work to engage a broader swath of the global public in meaningful action related to pressing sustainability issues
Action (physics · Active listening · Collaborative learning · Conceptual framework · Everyday life · Focus group · Sociocultural evolution · Sustainability · Sustainable development · Environmental Education and Sustainability · Innovative Education and Learning Practices · Social Representations and Identity
Sustainable Development and Learning
The Culture of Education
A Focus Theory of Normative Conduct
The 95 Percent Solution
Environmental education and K-12 student outcomes
Beyond the roots of human inaction
Significant Life Experiences Revisited
The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms
Evolution of co-management
Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour
Interest and Self-Sustained Learning as Catalysts of Development
“What Would the Mushrooms Say?” Speculating Inclusive and Optimistic Futures with Nature as Teacher
The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
Evaluating social learning in participatory mapping of ecosystem services
Community listening sessions
Emotions and transformative learning for sustainability
Understanding behavior to understand behavior change
Exploring dynamism of cultural ecosystems services through a review of environmental education research
How social norms are often a barrier to addressing climate change but can be part of the solution
Framing for resilience through social learning
Environmental learning in everyday life
Using a Delphi study to clarify the landscape and core outcomes in environmental education
Mind the Gap
Sociocultural learning theories for social-ecological change
Free‐choice environmental learning
Researching and understanding environmental learning
Conservation learning in wildlife tourism settings
Environmental education for social–ecological system resilience
Forest owners’ perceptions of ecotourism
Foundations of Place
Charges for plastic bags
Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms
Situated Learning
Using focus groups
Knowledge, Learning and the Evolution of Conservation Practice for Social-Ecological System Resilience
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |