Environmental Sociology

Having emerged in the 1970s as public awareness of and concern for environmental problems increased, environmental sociology’s main goal is to understand the interconnections between human societies and the natural (or biophysical) environment. Environmental sociology has been described as comprising four major areas of research. First, environmental sociologists study the social causes of environmental problems. Along these lines, scholars have developed an array of theoretical frameworks to explain how various social factors, including demographic, social, cultural, political, economic, and technological dynamics, generate environmental impacts and problems, and they have conducted many empirical studies on a wide range of environmental indicators to assess hypotheses derived from these theories. Second, environmental sociology is concerned with how the natural environment influences and impacts society. Early environmental sociologists strongly emphasized the dependence of human societies on the natural environment and stressed that the field should consider how the environment shapes society in addition to how society impacts the environment. Research in this area tackles issues such as the social consequences of natural disasters and the inequitable distribution of environmental hazards along racial and socioeconomic lines. Third, environmental sociology examines social reactions and responses to environmental threats and problems. Research in this area focuses on understanding patterns and trends in environmental attitudes and behaviors (e.g., recycling) as well as various aspects of the environmental movement. Fourth, environmental sociologists are concerned with understanding social processes and dynamics that could advance environmental reform and sustainability. In general, environmental sociology has tended to focus more on explaining how society causes environmental problems while paying less attention to potential solutions, but a shift has taken place in recent decades. The development, discussion, and empirical assessment of theories of environmental reform, analyses of potential solutions to environmental crises, and drafting of conceptual frameworks for sustainability have become important foci of scholarly activity in environmental sociology. Another major area of research, one that cuts across the preceding four, is the human dimensions of global climate change, which has become one of the main substantive issues studied by environmental sociologists. In this article, important scholarly works in each of these five areas are highlighted and briefly discussed, along with a selection of the most relevant textbooks, handbooks and collections, encyclopedia and review articles that provide general overviews of the field, and academic journals that publish environmental sociology research.