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Numerous studies find modest, consistent gender differences in environmental concern within the general publics of North American and European countries, but results from the few studies of gender differences among politicians are inconsistent. We test if women report stronger environmental concern than men across four levels of the Swedish polity, utilising three data sets: a representative sample of the general public, a survey of all representatives in municipal-level and county-level councils, and a survey of members of the Swedish Parliament. Results from our multivariate ordered logistic regression models reveal a consistent pattern across the lower three levels: women report greater environmental concern than men in the general public and in municipal and county councils. In the Swedish Parliament, however, the apparent effect of gender is largely explained by political orientation. Adapted from the source document.

Research on environmental concern has consistently found that women have modestly stronger pro-environmental values, beliefs, and attitudes than do men. Scholars have proposed and examined several explanations and have found that only a few hypotheses receive somewhat consistent empirical support, including the institutional trust hypothesis. Given that recent research suggests that men and women have equivalent levels of trust in social institutions, we chose to revisit the institutional trust hypothesis. We use a structural equation modeling technique on General Social Survey data from 2000 and 2010. In both years, we found that women report greater pro-environmental views and concern about environmental problems than do men. Yet, we found only minimal gender differences in institutional trust and no evidence that institutional trust mediates the relationship between gender and environmental concern. Our study does not support the institutional trust hypothesis. We end by identifying potential implications of our findings and suggestions for future research.

Compared with men, women often express stronger proenvironmental attitudes and values and more frequently engage in private environmental behaviors (e.g., recycling), but not in public environmental behaviors (e.g., joining a protest about an environmental issue). This study uses the 2010 General Social Survey data to test whether this pattern is driven by the differing biographical availability of men and women. Do women's time constraining commitments, such as having a paid job, living in multi-adult households, or parenting, relate to fewer public environmental behaviors but not fewer private behaviors? Results show that living with other adults while parenting increases the odds that a woman rather than a man performs no public behavior, but having a paid job does not. Living with other adults and not having a paid job also increase women's participation in private behaviors. This study offers partial support for the biographical availability thesis, while also discovering a link between biographical availability and private environmental behaviors.

Humans live in social communities that are embedded ecologically within overlapping biophysical environments. This volume facilitates an ongoing dialogue between community sociologists and environmental sociologists about how humans interact with each other in social communities and with biophysical environments in an ecological community. The chapters in this volume contribute to three related areas of scholarship. First, chapters two through four deal with the ecological and social significance of place. The authors of these three chapters examine different theoretical and substantive dilemmas regarding place and ecology. Their scholarship investigates the significance of place across a range of natural, modified, and built environments. Second, chapters five through seven deal with the challenges of local sustainability. The authors of these three chapters perform scholarship on social, economic and ecological dimensions of local sustainability. Third, chapters eight through eleven deal with local environmental politics. The authors of these four chapters examine the various dynamics of local political processes in communities across three continents. These scholars explicitly examine how the structure of political opportunities in different localities affects the mobilization necessary to recognize and ameliorate environmental problems. We anticipate that this volume furthers the cross-pollination of ideas between community sociologists and environmental sociologists. Ultimately, the heightened and sustained communication between these two groups of scholars may lead to emergent theoretical, methodological, and substantive insights that may contribute to the discipline of sociology more generally. Different sections of the book address ecological and social significance of place, challenges of local sustainability, and local environmental politics. The book enhances the interplay of ideas between community sociologists and environmental sociologists, and stimulates thought that will contribute to the general field of sociology.

ObjectiveWe compare the relative performance of two measures of identification with the environmental movement: a self‐identified environmentalist indicator and an environmental movement identity indicator.MethodsWe utilize data from the March/April 2000–2010 Gallup Polls to examine how these two measures of identification with the environmental movement are related to membership in environmental organizations, attitudes toward the environmental movement, and private and public environmental behaviors.ResultsWhile both indicators similarly predict self‐reported private environmental behaviors, the environmental movement identity indicator is more strongly associated with membership in environmental organizations and attitudes toward the environmental movement, and the self‐identified environmentalist indicator is more strongly associated with self‐reported public environmental behaviors.ConclusionsGiven the performance of the environmental movement identity measure, we lay out an agenda for future research using a slightly revised version of the indicator to investigate identification with a range of social movements via surveys of nationally representative samples of the general public.