World Social Science Report 2013
Changing Global Environments
Produced by the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and UNESCO, and published by the OECD, the 2013 World Social Science Report represents a comprehensive overview of the field gathering the thoughts and expertise of hundreds of social scientists from around the world.
This edition focuses on the transformative role of the social sciences in confronting climate and broader processes of environmental change, and in addressing priority problems from energy and water, biodiversity and land use, to urbanisation, migration and education.
The report includes 100 articles written by 150 authors from 41 countries all over the world. Authors represent some 24 disciplines, mainly in the social sciences.
The contributions highlight the central importance of social science knowledge for environmental change research, as a means of understanding changing environments in terms of social processes and as framework for finding concrete solutions towards sustainability.
Possibilities and prospects of social change in response to the environmental crisis
Introduction to Part 4
Part 4 focuses on visions of change, particularly the role of technology and shifts in economic policies in shaping the future; conditions of change: that is, the drivers and barriers to changes in human behaviour; and interpretation and subjective sense-making, exploring how individuals and societies perceive and understand the changes occurring around them.