ABSTRACT
In the concluding section of the book, this penultimate chapter elaborates on the central quest for research design that approaches green skills questions as inextricably linked to complex economic, environmental and social justice contexts that are systemic and emergent in nature, therefore necessitating a depth ontology and a dialectic approach, given the transformative intent of researching towards a more just and sustainable society. The chapter highlights methodological insights from the studies reviewed in this book, and provides guidance for green skills research design. It does so in relation to four interacting domains that research and programme planners need to consider in relation to each other. These are: the political-institutional context; theory and conceptual considerations; researchers’ personal-professional commitments; and the aligned methodological considerations. The meta-theory underlabouring the work in this book is Bhaskar’s dialectical critical realism, and its practical implications are illustrated and elaborated here with reference to the most pertinent features including lamination, systems, emergence, absence and associated approaches to analysis. The result is not a blueprint for a single research design, but considerations that could give rise to a variety of different designs for green skills research.
