This paper considers that the landscape of early childhood education in England is dominated by discourses of 'readiness-for-school' and 'readiness-for-learning’ that act to heavily stratify the educational spaces inhabited by young children. The 'ready-child' is constructed as a normative identity towards which the ‘unready’ child is expected to progress. The confinement of children within such predetermined subject positions is considered problematic, as inevitably not all children will achieve these normative ideals, resulting in their exclusion from positions of 'success', as defined by dominant educational narratives. In response to these concerns, this article seeks to disrupt dominant conceptualizations of 'readiness' in the context of early childhood education, attempting to produce a rupture in the educational landscape, expanding space for alternative ideas, theories and practices. In a deliberate move away from concepts that relate 'readiness' to predefined goals, outcomes and identities, this article explores the possibility of thinking with a complex logic in order to generate new ideas, understandings and practices. Approaching complexity from the ‘outside-in’, this paper draws in particular on the concept of 'becoming' (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), exploring 'readiness' as a complex process of emergence, always open to the unpredictable and the new. It is argued that ‘readiness’ is part of an open-ended ‘becoming’, rather than a pre-defined ‘state’. Drawing on the work of Deleuze (1983), Deleuze and Guattari (1987) and Dewey (1899/2010; 1916), this reconceptualized idea of 'readiness' does not hark back to romantic notions that might consider all forms of development equally valid or desirable. This paper argues, instead, that it matters greatly what and how children ‘become’ and as such, ‘readiness’ for these emergent ‘becomings’ must be considered an ethical and political endeavor.
{"title":"Reconceptualizing Dominant Discourses in Early Childhood Education: Exploring \"Readiness\" as an Active-Ethical-Relation.","authors":"K. Evans","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT23144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT23144","url":null,"abstract":"This paper considers that the landscape of early childhood education in England is dominated by discourses of 'readiness-for-school' and 'readiness-for-learning’ that act to heavily stratify the educational spaces inhabited by young children. The 'ready-child' is constructed as a normative identity towards which the ‘unready’ child is expected to progress. The confinement of children within such predetermined subject positions is considered problematic, as inevitably not all children will achieve these normative ideals, resulting in their exclusion from positions of 'success', as defined by dominant educational narratives. In response to these concerns, this article seeks to disrupt dominant conceptualizations of 'readiness' in the context of early childhood education, attempting to produce a rupture in the educational landscape, expanding space for alternative ideas, theories and practices. In a deliberate move away from concepts that relate 'readiness' to predefined goals, outcomes and identities, this article explores the possibility of thinking with a complex logic in order to generate new ideas, understandings and practices. Approaching complexity from the ‘outside-in’, this paper draws in particular on the concept of 'becoming' (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), exploring 'readiness' as a complex process of emergence, always open to the unpredictable and the new. It is argued that ‘readiness’ is part of an open-ended ‘becoming’, rather than a pre-defined ‘state’. Drawing on the work of Deleuze (1983), Deleuze and Guattari (1987) and Dewey (1899/2010; 1916), this reconceptualized idea of 'readiness' does not hark back to romantic notions that might consider all forms of development equally valid or desirable. This paper argues, instead, that it matters greatly what and how children ‘become’ and as such, ‘readiness’ for these emergent ‘becomings’ must be considered an ethical and political endeavor.","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79857251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article aims at explicating the emergence of human interactional sense‐making process within educational leadership as a complex system. The kind of leadership is understood as a holistic entity called collaborative leadership. There, sense‐making emerges across interdependent domains, called attributes of collaborative leadership. The attributes give rise to the complex system. They are suggested to be the very agents, i.e. both the source and the outcome of the synergetic sense‐making process. Hence, the agents are not the single persons involved who, however, supply the collective attributes that are modified through human interaction in a holistic way. For studying the emergence process in reality, a long‐term development process within an educational executive team was exploited. The team aimed at co‐creating novel leadership thinking and working practices for its new unit after a merger of separated schools. The emergent sense‐making process was examined through such agent‐attributes that were identified as attractors within the complex system. Moreover, it is argued that illuminating the complex system of collaborative leadership, this can help other leadership teams to better understand their own sense‐making processes in the increasingly complex settings of today.
{"title":"Collaborative Educational Leadership: The Emergence of Human Interactional Sense-Making Process as a Complex System","authors":"Aini-Kristiina Jäppinen","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22978","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22978","url":null,"abstract":"The article aims at explicating the emergence of human interactional sense‐making process within educational leadership as a complex system. The kind of leadership is understood as a holistic entity called collaborative leadership. There, sense‐making emerges across interdependent domains, called attributes of collaborative leadership. The attributes give rise to the complex system. They are suggested to be the very agents, i.e. both the source and the outcome of the synergetic sense‐making process. Hence, the agents are not the single persons involved who, however, supply the collective attributes that are modified through human interaction in a holistic way. For studying the emergence process in reality, a long‐term development process within an educational executive team was exploited. The team aimed at co‐creating novel leadership thinking and working practices for its new unit after a merger of separated schools. The emergent sense‐making process was examined through such agent‐attributes that were identified as attractors within the complex system. Moreover, it is argued that illuminating the complex system of collaborative leadership, this can help other leadership teams to better understand their own sense‐making processes in the increasingly complex settings of today.","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83407382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Expanding the Gene Pool","authors":"Bernard P. Ricca","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22977","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22977","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73565127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A review of Melanie Mitchell’s MOOC “Introduction to Complexity”","authors":"Michelle E. Jordan","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22980","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22980","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81950981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is now a developed and extensive literature on the implications of the ‘complexity frame of reference’ (Castellani & Hafferty, 2009) for education in general and pedagogy in particular. This includes a wide range of interesting contributions which consider how complexity can inform, inter alia, research on educational systems (Cochran-Smith et al., 2014; Radford, 2008) and theories of learning (Mercer, 2011; Fromberg, 2010), as well as work dealing with specific pedagogical domains including physical education (Atencio et al., 2014, Tan et al. 2010), clinical education and in particular the learning of clinical teams (Noel et al., 2013; Bleakley, 2010; Gonnering, 2010), and learning in relation to systems engineering (Thompson et al., 2011, Foster et al., 2001). This material has contributed considerably to my thinking about the subject matter of this essay which is not the implications of complexity for pedagogy but rather how we might develop a pedagogy OF complexity and, more specifically, a pedagogy of what Morin (2008) has called ‘general’ (as opposed to ‘restricted’) complexity. In other words how should we teach the complexity frame of reference to students at all appropriate educational levels?
现在，关于“复杂性参考框架”(Castellani & Hafferty, 2009)对一般教育，特别是教育学的影响，已经有了一个成熟而广泛的文献。这包括广泛的有趣的贡献，这些贡献考虑了复杂性如何为教育系统研究提供信息(Cochran-Smith et al.， 2014;Radford, 2008)和学习理论(Mercer, 2011;Fromberg, 2010)，以及处理特定教学领域的工作，包括体育(Atencio等人，2014,Tan等人，2010)，临床教育，特别是临床团队的学习(Noel等人，2013;爱丽莎,2010;Gonnering, 2010)，以及与系统工程相关的学习(Thompson et al.， 2011; Foster et al.， 2001)。这些材料极大地促进了我对本文主题的思考，这篇文章的主题不是复杂性对教育学的影响，而是我们如何发展一种复杂性教育学，更具体地说，是Morin(2008)所说的“一般”(而不是“有限”)复杂性的教育学。换句话说，我们应该如何向所有相应教育水平的学生教授复杂性参照系?
{"title":"Thoughts on a Pedagogy OF Complexity.","authors":"D. Byrne","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22963","url":null,"abstract":"There is now a developed and extensive literature on the implications of the ‘complexity frame of reference’ (Castellani & Hafferty, 2009) for education in general and pedagogy in particular. This includes a wide range of interesting contributions which consider how complexity can inform, inter alia, research on educational systems (Cochran-Smith et al., 2014; Radford, 2008) and theories of learning (Mercer, 2011; Fromberg, 2010), as well as work dealing with specific pedagogical domains including physical education (Atencio et al., 2014, Tan et al. 2010), clinical education and in particular the learning of clinical teams (Noel et al., 2013; Bleakley, 2010; Gonnering, 2010), and learning in relation to systems engineering (Thompson et al., 2011, Foster et al., 2001). This material has contributed considerably to my thinking about the subject matter of this essay which is not the implications of complexity for pedagogy but rather how we might develop a pedagogy OF complexity and, more specifically, a pedagogy of what Morin (2008) has called ‘general’ (as opposed to ‘restricted’) complexity. In other words how should we teach the complexity frame of reference to students at all appropriate educational levels?","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78066637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The notion of complexity — as in “education is a complex system” — has two different meanings. On the one hand, there is the epistemic connotation, with “Complex” meaning “difficult to understand, hard to control”. On the other hand, complex has a technical meaning, referring to systems composed of many interacting components, the interactions of which lead to self organization and emergence. For agents, participating in a complex system such as education, it is important that they can reduce the epistemic complexity of the system, in order to allow them to understand the system, to accomplish their goals and to evaluate the results of their activities. We argue that understanding, accomplishing and evaluation requires the creation of simplex systems, which are praxis-based forms of representing complexity. Agents participating in the complex system may have different kinds of simplex systems governing their understanding and praxis. In this article, we focus on three communities of agents in education — educators, researchers and policymakers — and discuss characteristic features of their simplex systems. In particular, we focus on the simplex system of educational researchers, and we discuss interactions — including conflicts or incompatibilities — between their simplex systems and those of educators and policymakers. By making some of the underlying features of the educational researchers’ simplex systems more explicit – including the underlying notion of causality and the use of variability as a source of knowledge — we hope to contribute to clarifying some of the hidden conflicts between simplex systems of the communities participating in the complex system of education.
{"title":"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? The Dynamic Interplay between Educational Practice, Policy and Research.","authors":"P. Geert, Henderien W. Steenbeek","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22962","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22962","url":null,"abstract":"The notion of complexity — as in “education is a complex system” — has two different meanings. On the one hand, there is the epistemic connotation, with “Complex” meaning “difficult to understand, hard to control”. On the other hand, complex has a technical meaning, referring to systems composed of many interacting components, the interactions of which lead to self organization and emergence. For agents, participating in a complex system such as education, it is important that they can reduce the epistemic complexity of the system, in order to allow them to understand the system, to accomplish their goals and to evaluate the results of their activities. We argue that understanding, accomplishing and evaluation requires the creation of simplex systems, which are praxis-based forms of representing complexity. Agents participating in the complex system may have different kinds of simplex systems governing their understanding and praxis. In this article, we focus on three communities of agents in education — educators, researchers and policymakers — and discuss characteristic features of their simplex systems. In particular, we focus on the simplex system of educational researchers, and we discuss interactions — including conflicts or incompatibilities — between their simplex systems and those of educators and policymakers. By making some of the underlying features of the educational researchers’ simplex systems more explicit – including the underlying notion of causality and the use of variability as a source of knowledge — we hope to contribute to clarifying some of the hidden conflicts between simplex systems of the communities participating in the complex system of education.","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77379822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Remembering Sherrie Reynolds","authors":"M. F. Huckaby","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22966","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22966","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76224932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper addresses some methodological issues concerning traditional linear approaches and shows the need for a paradigm shift in education research towards the Complexity and Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (NDS) framework. It presents a quantitative piece of research aiming to test the nonlinear dynamical hypothesis in education. It applies catastrophe theory and demonstrates that students’ achievements in science education could be described by a cusp model, where two cognitive variables are implemented as controls - the logical thinking as the asymmetry and the field dependence/independence as the bifurcation respectively. The results support the nonlinear hypothesis by providing the empirical evidence for bifurcation and hysteresis effects in students’ performance. Interpretation of the model is provided and implications and fundamental epistemological issues are discussed.
{"title":"Bifurcation and Hysteresis Effects in Student Performance: The Signature of Complexity and Chaos in Educational Research","authors":"D. Stamovlasis","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22964","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22964","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses some methodological issues concerning traditional linear approaches and shows the need for a paradigm shift in education research towards the Complexity and Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (NDS) framework. It presents a quantitative piece of research aiming to test the nonlinear dynamical hypothesis in education. It applies catastrophe theory and demonstrates that students’ achievements in science education could be described by a cusp model, where two cognitive variables are implemented as controls - the logical thinking as the asymmetry and the field dependence/independence as the bifurcation respectively. The results support the nonlinear hypothesis by providing the empirical evidence for bifurcation and hysteresis effects in students’ performance. Interpretation of the model is provided and implications and fundamental epistemological issues are discussed.","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87747824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article identifies elements and connections that seem to be relevant to explain persistent aggregate behavioral patterns in educational systems when using complex dynamical systems modeling and simulation approaches. Several studies have shown what factors are at play in educational fields, but confusion still remains about the underlying mechanisms driving observed outcomes and therefore more guidance is needed. The framework suggested here throws some ideas in that direction stressing the relevance of nonlinear complex interactions via feedbacks between education systems’ transition rates ─ intake, repetition, dropout, and promotion ─ and schooling outcomes. Schooling outcomes reciprocally influence transition rates in the system generating aggregate patterns that continuously change (and are changed by) the inputs that endogenously determine them. Furthermore, this paper underscores practical and theoretical limitations of traditional quantitative models that can be addressed with a complex systems analysis and suggests future lines of investigation. Specifically, this article advocates a complexity approach ruled by the laws of thermodynamics to help detect corrupt practices in education systems and improve accountability and governance in such systems.
{"title":"Toward a Common Structure in Demographic Educational Modeling and Simulation: A Complex Systems Approach","authors":"Porfirio Guevara-Chaves","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22965","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22965","url":null,"abstract":"This article identifies elements and connections that seem to be relevant to explain persistent aggregate behavioral patterns in educational systems when using complex dynamical systems modeling and simulation approaches. Several studies have shown what factors are at play in educational fields, but confusion still remains about the underlying mechanisms driving observed outcomes and therefore more guidance is needed. The framework suggested here throws some ideas in that direction stressing the relevance of nonlinear complex interactions via feedbacks between education systems’ transition rates ─ intake, repetition, dropout, and promotion ─ and schooling outcomes. Schooling outcomes reciprocally influence transition rates in the system generating aggregate patterns that continuously change (and are changed by) the inputs that endogenously determine them. Furthermore, this paper underscores practical and theoretical limitations of traditional quantitative models that can be addressed with a complex systems analysis and suggests future lines of investigation. Specifically, this article advocates a complexity approach ruled by the laws of thermodynamics to help detect corrupt practices in education systems and improve accountability and governance in such systems.","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89372756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Socio-techno-cultural reality, in the current historical era, evolves at a faster rate than do human brain or human institutions. This reality creates a “complexity gap” that reduces human and institutional capacities to adapt to the challenges of late modernity. New insights from the neurosciences may help to reduce the complexity gap. This paper argues that an extension of the period of human nurturance is one element that may serve to reduce the complexity gap. The argument herein is a synthesis of a variety of literatures that serve to support the notion of rethinking how long humans must be nurtured and educated.
{"title":"Reducing the Complexity Gap: Expanding the Period of Human Nurturance","authors":"L. Kiel","doi":"10.29173/CMPLCT22961","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/CMPLCT22961","url":null,"abstract":"Socio-techno-cultural reality, in the current historical era, evolves at a faster rate than do human brain or human institutions. This reality creates a “complexity gap” that reduces human and institutional capacities to adapt to the challenges of late modernity. New insights from the neurosciences may help to reduce the complexity gap. This paper argues that an extension of the period of human nurturance is one element that may serve to reduce the complexity gap. The argument herein is a synthesis of a variety of literatures that serve to support the notion of rethinking how long humans must be nurtured and educated.","PeriodicalId":43228,"journal":{"name":"Complicity-An International Journal of Complexity and Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89226402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：