Dissertation Research: Assessment and Development of Community Leaders for Sustainability

Saybrook University, Pasadena CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project would support the dissertation research of graduate student Enrico J. Wensing to develop the Global Sustainability Inventory (GSI) an assessment instrument to help characterize community leaders for sustainability (CLS). This is a social psychology project that proposes to identify key psychological and social factors that lead to the development and efficacy of community leaders for sustainability, which are known by a number of labels such as cultural creatives, positive deviants, social entrepreneurs, sustainability champions, international social workers, and knowledge or boundary managers; these are the people that actively participate in movements for positive social change within and between communities and seek to help move global societies toward a sustainable future. They make up a very small but effective percentage of the total population. Utilizing various field sites, PhD Candidate Enrico J. Wensing will research and develop the GSI across a few of the diverse sociocultural communities that are faced with some of the various challenges in a transition toward sustainability and sustainable development. By implementing cross-cultural collaboration to research the assessment instrument, this project proposes to develop the GSI so that it can be administered via the web and ultimately assist the development of community leadership for sustainability across the world.