Unpacking social learning in planning: who learns what from whom?

ABSTRACT

Social learning is the process of exchanging and developing knowledge (including skills and experiences) through human interaction. This key planning process needs to be better understood, given the increase and variety of non-planners influencing planning processes. This article explores who learns what from whom through social learning in planning. We unpack social learning theoretically to be able to map it, and employ empirically-based storytelling to discuss its relevance to planning practice. We conclude that social learning can lead to positive and negative outcomes and provides a useful analytical lens to understand planning practices at the level of individuals.

KEYWORDS:

• Social learning
• knowledge
• planning practice
• storytelling
• individual

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A term used in psychology to refer to the structural distinction between, for example, procedural and conceptual knowledge. It relates to the identifiable human tendency to organize information into patterns (see e.g. Day, Arthur, and Gettman 2001).

2. N is a representation of one individual, but indicating that there might be any number of additional individuals, each with their own social realm.

3. All names are fictitious for the sake of anonymity.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under the Smart Urban Regions of the Future (SURF) programme [438-15-159].