'If things were simple...': complexity in education

Abstract

Rationale, aims and objectives: In this speculative essay, we explore some of the implications and possibilities of complexity thinking for formal education.

Methods: We begin by developing the working definition that complexity research is the study of learning systems. Drawing on hard (rigorously empirical) complexity research, we critique some of the untenable assumptions and constructs that are typically used to frame those social enterprises that are attentive to adaptive, learning forms--including education, social work and health care. Looking to soft (holistic and more action-oriented) complexity research, we review some of the insights and advice that have arisen among educational researchers. This part of the discussion is framed by a brief description of an ongoing study of teachers' disciplinary knowledge of mathematics--specifically how complexity theory compels and enables us to grapple with the unique qualities of our 'object' of study, its emergence, its relationship to student understanding, and how it is implicated in such grander systems as culture and global ecology.

Conclusions: We conclude by arguing that complexity theory might be properly construed as a theory of education, in contrast to the many theories that have been imported into and imposed on discussions of education over the past few centuries.