Dennis Sumara

Challenging Images of Knowing: Complexity Science and Educational Research.

This article represents an attempt to reconcile discussions of aspects of educational research with recent developments in complexity science. It is argued that current characterizations of and distinctions among research methodologies in education are potentially counterproductive, in large part because they tend to be defined against or in terms of principles and methods that have been rendered problematic within the sciences. To develop this point, the authors draw on several contemporary discourses: poststructuralist methods are used to foreground the Euclidean (plane) geometric roots of much of the vocabulary of educational research; fractal geometry is taken as a source of images and analogies to support alternative conceptions of knowledge, learning and teaching; informed by poststructuralist and fractal geometric notions, the authors turn to complexity science and argue that it is fitted to and offers important elaborations of current discussions of educational research methodologies. In the process, they suggest that it may be time to abandon some of the prominent distinctions used to describe educational research, including ‘quantitative versus qualitative’ and ‘sciences versus humanities’.

Why Aren't They Getting This? Working through the regressive myths of constructivist pedagogy

Through several collaborative inquiries with teachers in elementary and middle schools, we have noticed a troublesome trend: teachers have become familiar with many of the key terms and catchphrases of various constructivist discourses, yet they tend to be relatively unfamiliar with the developments in epistemology that have driven the rapid emergence of these vocabularies. In consequence, our efforts to invite teachers into current discussions of cognition have often been frustrated and frustrating. We argue that this situation is in large part due to two circumstances. First, the vocabularies chosen by constructivists are often too readily aligned with commonsense understandings of personal knowing and collective knowledge. Second, and closely related, educational theorists and researchers have not always been sufficiently attentive to the contexts of their work. As such, rather than prompting a break from deeply entrenched habits of thinking, constructivist discourses have often been co-opted to support renewed and regressive embraces of Platonic and Cartesian assumptions. Somewhat ironically, then, the work of many educational theorists and researchers appears to be carried out in ignorance of the tentative and participatory dynamics that are argued to be at the root of cognitive processes.

Curriculum forms : on the assumed shapes of knowing and knowledge

Historically, the logico-rational mode of argumentation co-evolved with particular mathematical systems and particular geometrically-informed manners of interpreting experience and perception. We examine some of the ways these geometries continue to shape the sensibilities, practices and structures of much of curriculum discourse, in spite of the well-developed critiques of their associated logics. We draw on fractal geometry, a new field of mathematical study, to illustrate the pervasiveness and the constraining tendencies of classical geometries. We develop the suggestion that fractal geometry is a mathematical analogue to such discourse fields as post-modernism, post-structuralism and ecological theory. We attempt to show how, through the visual metaphor of a fractal image, conventional theories of knowing and knowledge might be seen as not only compatible, but as nested in and suggestive of one another. We briefly examine how fractal geometry can complement and inform other emergent sensibilities in curriculum, in particular, those discussions critical of the linear structures associated with classical logic.

Action Research as a Writerly Text: locating co‐labouring in collaboration

ABSTRACT In this essay the authors develop the metaphor of textual reading and writing in action research, focussing on two different types of texts: the readerly and the writerly. By examining the way in which each of these texts is written and read, three ideas are discussed: the value of understanding action research as a writerly text; the shift in authority from readerly to writerly texts; and finally, the way in which this metaphorical construction can more clearly help foster a deeper understanding of the nature of collaboration within action research projects.

Complexity science and educational action research: toward a pragmatics of transformation

Abstract In this article, the authors extend Phelps & Hases (2002) explorations of the theoretical and methodological connections of complexity theory and action research by emphasizing complexity science as the study of learning systems. By emphasizing the importance of ‘complexity thinking’, an argument is made for conceptualizing action research as a ‘pragmatics of transformation’ that explicitly aims to bring together the self-interests of autonomous agents into grander collective possibilities. In addition, the authors offer pragmatic advice that is relevant for the ‘educational’ and ‘learning’ aspects of educational action research by describing a number of conditions that need to be in place in order for complex learning systems to develop and thrive.

Canadian Identity and Curriculum Theory: An Ecological, Postmodern Perspective

In this article, we develop the thesis that curriculum studies work in Canada might be characterized in terms of some persistent and consistent theoretical commitments, ones that we suggest might have been prompted in part by the nations history and by popular commentaries on national identity. We draw on ecological and postmodern discourses in efforts to conceptualize and to describe a relationship between Canadian culture(s) and the development of theories of curriculum within the Canadian context.

Creating Commonplaces for Interpretation: Literary Anthropology and Literacy Education Research

This article uses Isers (1989, 1993) concept of “literary anthropology” to inform methods for textual interpretation that explicitly aim to create relationships among experiences of history, memory, language, and geography. This article presents an interpretive text, which functions as the report of the authors personal engagements with literary fiction and with philosophical, theoretical, and historical writings. In addition, the article provides a theoretical and historical overview of literary anthropology as a research method, with particular attention to how this method is influenced by the hermeneutic philosophic traditions. The article concludes with a discussion of what literary anthropological methods might contribute to literacy education and literacy education research.

Educating Consciousness through Literary Experiences.

In this essay, the authors describe human consciousness as an embodied experience that emerges from a complex relationship of the biological and the phenomenological. Following arguments made by ) and ), they argue that one primary way that human beings develop self‐awareness of their own minds is by becoming aware of other minds. These mind‐reading abilities become fundamental to the continual adaptations that human beings must make in their daily lives. The authors offer descriptions of two literary texts (one print‐based and one electronic) to illustrate how these texts participate with other forms of culture and with human biology to produce experiences of self‐conscious awareness. They argue that if consciousness is understood as an emergent property of biology and culture, and if human beings develop self‐awareness of their own minds by becoming cognisant of other minds, then it follows that literary experiences create productive mind‐reading practices that contribute to the ongoing development and emergence of consciousness and, as such, are important for education. They conclude that extended opportunities to critically inquire into readers’ imagined identifications with characters and their situations can support the development of empathic understanding of others.

Small Differences Matter: Interrupting Certainty About Identity in Teacher Education

ABSTRACT This article offers a theory of identity that explicates how biological, experiential, and contextual influences contribute to the ongoing development of the human sense of self–what I describe as an ecological understanding of identity. My primary goal in developing this argument is not so much to create certainty about what it means to occupy a sexuality subject position but, instead, to interrupt certainty. Hopefully, my arguments about what constitutes human identities are unsettling, making readers less sure what is meant by words like gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, heterosexual, man, and/or woman. I conclude with a discussion of what these insights might suggest for teacher education and for public schooling.

Consciousness and the Literary Engagement: Toward a Bio-Cultural Theory of Reading and Learning

In this paper, we develop the understanding that in context of expanding notions of the literary engagement, consciousness is understood as a process that both participates in the acts of reading and response, and at the same time, is potentially transformed by those acts. Yet, uninterrogated understandings of consciousness – what it is, what it does, what it feels like - continue to shape the way we structure our experiences with literature in the classroom in predominantly implicit ways. In the context of an enactivist understanding of cognition, consciousness emerges as an orienting feature that brings together the cultural and biological aspects of the literary experience.