Romina Rodela presented on current trends in the social learning discourse for natural resource management. Social learning is conceptualized in different ways in the literature. Rodela analyzed over 100 publications and identified three main approaches: individual-centric, network-centric, and socio-centric. While research shares reasons for adopting social learning, there are differences in how it is operationalized. Key issues include a lack of empirical data, limited understanding of learning processes, and a need to reflect on knowledge production and research methods to better understand social learning.

1. Romina Rodela
Wageningen University and Research Centre
Presetnation given at
Rhodes Univestity - Environmental Science
Grahamstown, South Africa
September 2012
Deconstructing the social learning discourse:
Current trends and themes in natural
resources management literature

2. Natural resource management seeks to balance the
needs of people with the capacity of the natural
resource system.
Rigid and uni-dimensional management methods with
a narrow definition of the problem led to a gradual and
unexpected change of the ecosystem (Holling, 1995).
 Failure with top-down and rigid approaches
contributed to a quest for alternatives.
New ideas :
adaptive management, co-managemet
and social learning.
Origins of the Discourse

3. Origins of the SL in NRM Discourse
Influences from disciplinary traditions :
Political sciences: democracy theory (Dryzek’s and Habermas).
Pedagogy: theories on learning (e.g., Argyrs, Mezirow, Kolb).
Systems theory: soft systems thinking,
Influences from alternative approachess to problem
solving:

4. Introduction
 Social learning (SL) is a conceptual construct upon which
the resource management literature has not reached an
agreement. It is conceptualized, understood and used in
many different ways.
This heterogeneity leads to questions e.g. what social
learning really entails? What is the specific contribution of
a social learning approach in light of this criticism? How
this is reflected in current literature?

5. The Analitical Framework
(1) characterizing features, (2) level of analysis, and
(3) operational measures.
Broken down into further questions:
 (1) how the literature understands the learning process;
what the assumed outcomes of a social learning process
are,
 (2) who the learning agent is,
 (3) how this is made operational.

6. Research Methods
 systematic review, evaluation of research that is
qualitative, descriptive, does not use comparable research
designs (Petticrew and Roberts, 2006)
 inclusiion: (i) quality (pee reviewed) (ii) relevance (use SL
within NRM applic. domain
 exclusion: (i) consistency, do not use of SL
 two researchers searched electronic bibliographic
databases (ISI; SCOPUS), search terms included social
learning, learning used both alone and in combination with
natural resources, resource systems, and resource
management appearing in titles, keywords or abstracts

7. Research Methods
Analysis involved:
 a data extraction form, detailing the codes was used,
 data extraction based on information provided within the
paper so to minimize subjectivee judgement,
 test-retest reliability was performed over a two week
interval and was found to be significant.

8. Results
116 unique publications > of which 97 met the inclusion
criteria
 descriptive statistic: helped to identify for general trends
e.g. resource type, geogrf. areas, applicative area,
 appraisal against pre-defined analytical items: helped to
identify emerging themes, identify the differences and
similarities in how social learning is conceptualized

9. Results: general trends
Type of natural resource research has reported about.

10. Results: general trends
Trend indicating an increase of research looking at certain
type of NR.

11. Results: general trends
Geographical distribution of natural resource empirical
cases.

12. Results: general trends
Trend indicating an interest for certain applicative contexts.

13. Results: general trends
Trend indicating a type of research published.

14. Results: differences and similarities
INDIVIDUAL-CENTRIC NETWORK-CENTRIC SOCIO-CENTRIC
- CHARACTERIZING FEATURES-
LEARNING PROCESS
Learning as a transformative process that occurs
during a participatory activity (transformative)
LEARNING PROCESS
Learning as a process embedded in past experience, and/or
observation of other practitioners (experiential
LEARNING PROCESS
Learning as an emergent property of the socio-
ecological system (emergent)
OUTCOMES
A change of participants’ internal-reflective processes
of (four dimensions); a change of participant’s
behaviour.
OUTCOMES
A change in of established resource use or management
practices.
OUTCOMES
Shift of the socio-ecological system on a more
sustainable path.
-UNIT OF ANALYSIS-
LEARNING AGENT
The individual (stakeholder) who participates to a
participatory workshop.
LEARNING AGENT
The practitioner who is a member to a community of practice
and/or network of practitioners.
LEARNING AGENT
The socio-ecological system.
-OPERATIONAL MEASURES-
OPERATIONALISATION
Improvement of the participant’s civil virtues (moral
dimension); an improved understanding of the
problem domain (cognitive dimensions) and relational
base (relational dimension).
OPERATIONALISATION
Improved relationships. Change in how things are done
OPERATIONALISATION:
A change in the institutions and management
practices, with a consequent change of the
ecosystems status.
-KNOWLEDGE-
KNOWLEDGE
Pre-existing: participants already possess knowledge
which they share in the course of a participatory
activity.
KNOWLEDGE
Co-created: network members possess some knowledge but
also contribute to develop new knowledge which is feed into
the network.
KNOWLEDGE
Incomplete: agents have incomplete knowledge.
They strive to up-grade their knowledge base in
a joint endeavour.

15. Results: differences and similarities

16. Results: general trends
 research seems to share the reasons for turning to a
learning based approach to NRM
 issue driven
 interdisciplinary
Yet there are differences in how SL is
operationalized and three research approaches to
social learning have been identified.

17. Results: differences and similarities
 normative construct
 collaborative activity
 learning is about change
Research emphasizes some aspects over others and
prescribe different properties to social learning,
particularly with regards to how social learning
contributes to resources management

18. Conclusions
 What are the current issues with SL research in NRM?
1. limited empirical research that reports on good quality primary data
2. limited understanding of learning processes in NRM
a need is identified to:
3. reflect on aspects of knowledge production and validation
(what is the epistemological base of the SL discourse?)
4. reflect on research designs/methods
(how to get there?)

19. References
Rodela, R. 2013. The social learning discourse: Trends, themes and interdisciplinary
influences in current research, Environmental Science & Policy, 25: 157-166,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2012.09.002.
Rodela, R., Cundill, G., Wals A. (2012). Methodological underpinnings of social learning
research in natural resource management. Ecological Economics, 77: 16-26
Rodela, R. (2011). Social learning and natural resource management: the emergence of
three research perspectives. Ecology and Society. 16(4): 30.
Romina Rodela, The social learning discourse: Trends, themes and interdisciplinary influences in current research, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 25, Ja
Romina Rodela, The social learning discourse: Trends, themes and interdisciplinary influences in current research, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 25,

20. Thank you for your attention !
For further information: romina.rodela@wur.nl
Acknowledgments:
The research reporter here is funded under the MarieCureActions-
PEOPLE-FP7(project titled Social Learning Processes in Natural Resource
Management: the Role of Learning, Negotiation and Social Capital for more
Sustainable Natural Resource Management).