Refurbishing learning via complexity theory: Introduction

Abstract

This Special Issue addresses a range of educational issues linked to main themes from our 2019 book The Emergence of Complexity: Rethinking Education as a Social Science. This book elaborated two major theses that raise fundamental questions for philosophy of education. First, that learning by groups is typically a distinctive kind of learning that is not reducible to learning by individuals. Second, that a degree of holism, as against a focus on individuals, is essential for achieving a convincing understanding of this distinctive type of group learning. These two theses are of direct interest to philosophy of education since they challenges the resources of received theories of learning. Yet this kind of group learning characterises the vast bulk of human learning situations that occur outside of formal education systems. In this Special Issue introductory article we, firstly, introduce some basic principles of complexity theory, and demonstrate that, together with the concept of a ‘co-present group’ (between 2 and about 12 individuals), these ideas offer develop novel understandings of the distinctive learning that occurs within such groups. Secondly, we outline and illustrate with further examples the main features of co-present groups. Thirdly, we consolidate our conceptual work by showing five ways in which our account of group learning serves to refurbish the concept of ‘learning’.

Keywords:

• Learning
• complexity
• emergence
• holism
• co-present groups
• affect

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The ideas presented in this paragraph are further elaborated in Hager and Beckett (2019: 157–158).

2 These two paragraphs draw upon Hager and Beckett (2020). For more detail on general complexity see Hager and Beckett (2019: 164–166).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Hager

Paul Hager, is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Technology, Sydney. His major scholarly interest in the philosophy of adult and vocational education centres on such topics as informal workplace learning, professional practice, skills and competence, and group learning. His most recent book is P. Hager & D. Beckett, (2019) The Emergence of Complexity: Rethinking Education as a Social Science (pub. Springer Nature).

David Beckett

David Beckett, retired in 2017 from The University of Melbourne where he was a Professor of Education and Deputy Dean of the faculty. As well as the 2019 book on complexity (co-author Paul Hager), he co-authored a textbook for doctoral and masters’ students, Educational Research: Creative Thinking and Doing (co-author John O’Toole, pub. Oxford UP 2010, second ed. 2013).