Course content

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

The course begins from the premise that climate change and environmental degradation represent the major societal challenges of our time. These affect societies and individuals differently, creating opportunities for new and intensified inequality and polarization between groups, regions, and nations.

The challenge societies face is twofold: how to address the consequences already visible today, and how to develop sustainable communities that safeguard democratic ideals and trust in the long term.

The course discusses a) causes and barriers in environmental and climate issues b) how narratives and perceptions of environmental and climate questions are shaped through social organization, media, politics, and science c) rights and inequality d) how theories of social change can help us understand these dynamics.

Students will learn how values influence understandings of climate and environment, theories of how societies can change, and how change can be understood as the interplay between individual practices, organization, social structures, technology, media, and politics. We examine the multiple roles of science in relation to nature, climate, and environment, as well as the inherent controversies of the sustainability concept and the Sustainable Development Goals. Students also gain insight into risk and uncertainty arising from climate and environmental challenges, and the role these play in both long-term social change and society’s ability to manage questions of rights, polarization, and conflict.

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

Teaching is research-based and varied, combining academic content with methodological training on current and controversial issues.

• Instruction combines lectures, discussions, group work, and a practical project in which a relevant climate and/or environmental challenge is mapped and analyzed. A field trip may be included.
• The course encourages interactive learning through debate, collective reading, and dissemination of academic texts.

Overall, the course provides students with both theoretical and analytical competence, as well as practical tools to work with sustainability, climate, and environmental issues across a wide range of professional fields, both within and beyond academia.

Learning outcome

Knowledge - the student shall:

• possess in-depth knowledge of various social science approaches to environmental, climate, and sustainability issues
• understand how different knowledge regimes compete and cooperate within the field of climate and environment
• be able to formulate and analyze socially relevant questions concerning climate, environment, and sustainability
• be able to present knowledge and provide advice on measures and instruments in a structured and accessible manner

Skills - the student shall:

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

Learning methods and activities

Lectures and seminars 4 hours per week.

If 6 or fewer students attend the course the two first weeks of teaching, the course will be given as an individual study course with supervision.

Compulsory assignments

• Continuous submissions that support the project work and oral presentation of the project

Required previous knowledge

60 credits including SOS1002 or an equivalent course in research methods. The requirement must be fulfilled to be admitted to the course.

Credit reductions