Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education
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Exploring the Complementary Nature of Education and Learning. Response to Joakim Larsson and Bo Dahlin
No full textCollaborative Educational Leadership: The Emergence of Human Interactional Sense-Making Process as a Complex System
No full textAbstrac
Change, Self-organization and the Search for Causality in Educational Research and Practice
No full textCausality is an inextricable part of the educational process, as our understanding of what works in education depends on our ability to make causal attributions. Yet, the research and policy literature in education tends to define causality narrowly as the attribution of educational outcomes to intervention effects in a randomized control trial context. This reduction of the educational process to simple input – output relationships leaves important questions unattended about how change is produced in educational systems, and how observed results can be predicted based on the propensity toward change in the baseline settings of those systems. This paper considers these questions from a Complex Dynamical Systems perspective, and concludes that answers to them can qualify the findings from at least some experiments
Quantitative Research Methods in Chaos and Complexity: From Probability to Post Hoc Regression Analyses
No full textIn addition to qualitative methods presented in chaos and complexity theories in educational research, this article addresses quantitative methods that may show potential for future research studies. Although much in the social and behavioral sciences literature has focused on computer simulations, this article explores current chaos and complexity methods that have the potential to bridge the divide between qualitative and quantitative, as well as theoretical and applied, human research studies. These methods include multiple linear regression, nonlinear regression, stochastics, Monte Carlo methods, Markov Chains, and Lyapunov exponents. A postulate for post hoc regression analysis is then presented as an example of an emergent, recursive, and iterative quantitative method when dealing with interaction effects and collinearity among variables. This postulate also highlights the power of both qualitative and quantitative chaos and complexity theories in order to observe and describe both the micro and macro levels of systemic emergence
Complexity Thinking and Methodology: The Potential of \u27Complex Case Study\u27 for Educational Research
No full textComplexity theories have in common perspectives that challenge linear methodologies and views of causality. In educational research, relatively little has been written explicitly exploring their implications for educational research methodology in general and case study in particular. In this paper, I offer a rationale for case study as a research approach that embodies complexity, and I explore the implications of a ‘complexity thinking’ stance for the conduct of case study research that distinguishes it from other approaches. A complexity theoretical framework rooted in the key concepts of emergence and complexity reduction, blended using a both/and logic, is used to develop the argument that case study enables the researcher to balance the open-ended, non-linear sensitivities of complexity thinking with the reduction in complexity, inherent in making methodological choices. The potential of this approach is illustrated using examples drawn from a complexity theoretical research study into curriculum change
A Fresh Take on Democratic Education: Revisiting Rancière through the Notions of Emergence and Enaction
No full textThis paper aims at contributing to new ways of thinking about democratic education. We discuss how revisiting this concept may help raise fresh questions in relation to non-formal fora grappling with intricate sustainability issues that span international borders. Starting from Rancière’s ideas on democracy, we first examine a conception of democratic education derived from these ideas. Next, we turn to a complexity informed notion of education as proposed by the two strands of emergence and enaction. We discuss how, in introducing additional dimensions, these strands might fruitfully complement the Rancierian conception of education. We conclude our discussion by proposing to reposition democratic education as a process of (co)-emergence afforded by a series of critical moments which, we suggest, can call forth radically novel visions for governing the commons
The Intelligence of Complexity: Do the Ethical Aims of Research and Intervention in Education Not Lead Us to a New Discourse "On the Study Methods of our Time"
No full textTo better appreciate the contribution of the ‘paradigm of complexity’ in Educational sciences, this paper proposes a framework discussing its cultural and historical roots. First, it focuses on Giambattista Vico’s (1668-1744) critique of René Descartes’ method (1637), contrasting Cartesian’s principles (evidence, disjunction, linear causality and enumeration), with the open rationality of the ‘ingenium’ (capacity to establish relationships and contextualize). Acknowledging the teleological character of scientific inquiry (Bachelard) and the inseparability between ‘subject’ and ‘object’, the second part of the text explores the relevance of ‘designo’ (intentional design) implemented by Leonardo da Vinci (1453-1519) in order to identify and formulate problems encountered by researchers. Referring to contemporary epistemologists (Bachelard, Valéry, Simon, Morin), this contribution finally questions the relationships between the ‘ingenio’ (pragmatic intelligence), the ‘designo’ (modeling method) and ethics. It proposes one to conceive the paradigm of complexity through the relationships it establishes between (pragmatic) action, (epistemic) reflection and meditation (ethics)
