Sustainability is a key concept used by social scientists interested in interactions between human society and the environment. This text offers a systematic and critical review of established and emerging methodological approaches, as well as tools for the integrated investigation of sustainability questions. Recognising the significance of scale for sustainability efforts and measurement, its scope ranges from the local to the global. Divided into five sections: Part I: examines the key challenges inherent to social scientific sustainability research, focusing in particular on methodological questions that arise from recent efforts towards greater disciplinary integration. Part II: discusses methodologies aimed at the investigation of attitudes and behaviour observable at the local level - from families and households to individual organisations within communities. Part III: focuses on comparative sustainability research across different levels of socio-political organisation - from cities and regions to nation-states. Part IV: covers recent developments which recognise the significance of time for sustainability research and which offer innovative methodological approaches that focus on life events and long-term outcome. Part V: offers a critical assessment of current and future trends in social-scientific sustainability researc. Bringing together contributions from international social scientists, this is the resource for academics and practitioners interested in sustainability research. It will be a core teaching text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in sustainability and sustainable development, geography, environmental sociology and the environmental sciences.

This book offers a collection of methods and approaches aimed at resolving some of humanity’s most pressing problems on a local and global level. Many of the methods are practical, with straightforward application and demonstrated positive outcomes whilst others are more visionary. Important for transitioning to a more sustainable world, these methods allow for the constructive challenging of existing western development and governance.

Covering a vast array of disciplines, this prescient Encyclopedia analyzes the many roles that applied ethics plays in the social sciences. Entries scrutinize the various manifestations of ethics across a range of disciplines and subdisciplines such as animal studies, criminology, and global health.

Sustainability is a key word in the environmental vocabulary informing how research projects in the social sciences are framed. This book provides a systematic and critical review of the key research methods used when studying sustainable strategies and outcomes. It is divided into four areas:.

Exploring how the concept of sustainability might be applied in each of the social sciences, this book argues that environmental questions will increasingly dominate humanity in the course of the 21st century. This holds out the opportunity, and practical necessity, to stimulate new lines of theoretical development within the social sciences and new forms of intellectual cooperation across them.

The Sustainable Development Research (SDR) Network is a UK wide initiative which aims to strengthen the delivery of high-quality cross cutting research relevant to sustainable development in the UK. From a social exlusion/regeneration perspective, this report offers a critical review of the SDR-Network's work and evaluates the proceedings of the SDR-Network's first annual conference held on the 4 December 2001.