Complex Emergence as Ongoing, Intentional, and Multidimensional: A Framework for Equitable Change

• In Event: Complexity Theory, Educational Leadership, and Policy: Principles and Applications

Abstract

Objectives

Often, researchers conceptualize organizational change in stages. Consider Goldstein, et al.’s (2010) framework for complex emergence: it progresses from initial conditions, to amplifying actions, to emergent order, to stabilizing feedback. In contrast, our research views emergent order as ongoing, intentional and multidimensional. While Goldstein’s (2010) framework can be illuminating, emergent order discerned through this lens may overlook complex processes unfolding at varied systems levels and contexts, all with implications for eliminating the opportunity gap, the focus of our research.

Theoretical framework

Believing “the racial problem [in US schools] is the opportunity gap . . . not achievement gap” (Kendi, 2021, p.103), we embrace a critical realistic perspective. Our analyses interweave relevant contexts, active participants, and prevailing value systems—assessing how their interactions shape subsequent outcomes (George & Bennett, 2005)—allowing us to offer reasonable conjectures on matters of causality in educational leadership (Maxwell, 2012), precisely what research on professional development with school principals lacks (Darling-Hammond, et al., 2007).

Methods

This qualitative study derives from participant-observation research conducted in six schools over ten years (2011-2021) linked to their principals’ involvement with the Lynch Leadership Academy at Boston College.

Data sources

Interviews with principals, teachers, students, parents;
 Classroom observations;
 Field notes from school meetings/events;
 Notices from school websites.

Results

Based on the data collected over ten years, we see complex emergence as both a deliberate and continuous process: “[O]rganizations can bring about change through creating the conditions where successful transformation occurs” (MacIntosh & MacLean, 1999, p. 306). Moreover, we maintain that school systems, as systems, can manifest different forms and outcomes in different contexts. One dimension of a complex system, for example, may move toward systems emergence while a different system may encounter initial conditions which offer new ideas and opportunities. In each context, different outcomes may surface. Schools committed to equity attend to such matters.

For us, the schools systems transformation heuristic (SSTH)—derived from identifying qualitative features of complex adaptive systems and applying focused questions to each feature—can assess whether schools are creating conditions that enable them to adapt to challenges and opportunities they encounter. Features of complex adaptive systems include:

 Disequilibrium;
 Distributing control and authority;
 Generating a shared school culture;
 Stabilizing feedback.

These factors can be assessed and modified to promote equitable outcomes in direct and synergistic ways.

Scholarly Significance: Eliminating the Opportunity Gap

The SSTH has one primary objective: to empower school communities with a framework to assess whether schools operate as complex adaptive systems, capturing the “blend of simplicity and clarity” that reveals “when and why productive systems emerge and how they can persist” (Miller & Page, 2007, p. 7). This offers educational leaders a means to eliminate the opportunity gap using systems-wide insights derived from underscoring factors that promote equitable outcomes and understanding how they came to be embraced (or not), and were manifest in school settings (or not), from the perspective of students, teachers, parents and administrators.

Authors

• Patrick J. McQuillan, Metropolitan Police Training Academy
  Presenting Author

• Ksenia Filatov, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kierstin M. Giunco, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author