Social Learning, Natural Resource Management, and Participatory Activities: A reflection on construct development and testing

•An analysis of selected literature is undertaken and ways in which social learning is operationalised considered.•Findings suggest that social learning is framed as a multi-dimensional construct•Research reports on dimensions to include cognitive, the moral, the relational, and trust

This analysis reflects on the use of multidimensional constructs for the study of social learning in natural resource management. Insight from deliberative democracy and adult learning literature are used to ground the identified four dimensions (the moral dimension the cognitive dimension, the relational dimension and trust). Then, a selection of empirical cases is surveyed with the aim to develop and understanding how well the empirical outcomes reported by these sit against the insights borrowed from the deliberative democracy and pedagogy literature. The paper concludes with some recommendations for future research.