Learning to Live Together
Learning to live together uses a holistic approach to address environmental sustainability by actively engaging different groups across generations, places, cultures, and disciplines. In bringing together people of various backgrounds, with different values, perspectives, knowledge and experience, social learning can occur. "People learn from and with one another and, as a result, collectively become more capable of withstanding setbacks, of dealing with insecurity, complexity and risks" (Wals, van der Hoeven and Blanken, 2009, p. 11). Social learning allows people to "engage in a creative quest for answers to questions for which no ready-made solutions are available" (Wals, van der Hoeven and Blanken, 2009, p.11) in order to transition to a more sustainable world. Read more about social learning, its key features and phases below.
This holistic perspective depends on collaboration and trust among community members living together. Collaboration and trust become the foundation of collective action to improve the environment and promote environmental sustainability. This human collective can be referred to as “social capital”.
