An Emerging Community of Scholars? Complexity in Education at AERA

• In Event: Back to Basics: Using Complexity Theory as a Theoretical Framework for Educational Spaces

Abstract

Purpose. The view that education can be conceptualized and studied from a complexity perspective has recently gained momentum (Hilpert & Marchand, 2018; Jacobson, 2019; Koopmans, et al., 2017). The community of scholars central to the shift away from linear, reductionist approaches is small, diverse, and dispersed. This paper illustrate trends and raises questions about how, at the SIG level, our community might grow in number and impact.

Perspective. I provide a historical perspective on how the complexity-informed research community has been represented at AERA within the Special Interest Group SIG-17, Chaos and Complexity Theories in Education. This small SIG exists within the wider hierarchical AERA ecosystem. SIG-17 leaders are seeking to (re)define its mission and vision and to this end, the following research questions were examined: (1) With which educational disciplines are SIG-17 community members affiliated? (2) Historically, what theoretical and methodological perspectives have SIG-17 papers brought to the scholarly community? (3) To what degree, and in what other AERA Special Interest Groups and Divisions, is complexity-oriented scholarship evident?

Mode of inquiry. To address the first question, the 2019 SIG-17 membership list was searched for each member’s institutional affiliation. Members’ online pages were accessed to determine departmental affiliation. To address the second question, a historical search of the AERA online program was undertaken for the years 2011, 2015, and 2019. Content analysis was used to establish the prevalence of various themes in the abstracts of papers. A Wordle tool was also used to provide an informational graphic of the most frequently used terms. To address the third question, the search was broadened to include the term “complexity” across AERA 2019 paper titles and abstracts. Topics and the AERA division or SIG were then extracted.

Data sources. Data sources included the SIG 17 Chaos and Complexity Theories member list, and the AERA Online Program database, both accessed via www.aera.net.

Conclusion. Scholars with explicitly articulated interests in complexity are diverse in academic positions and departments. This suggests an opportunity for continued growth into various sub-fields of educational research including curriculum theory, educational leadership, educational technology, educational psychology, higher education, policy, and statistics. In recent years, the Chaos and Complexity Theories SIG has experienced fluctuations in the number and type of research papers, with a notable dominance of conceptual papers in sessions between 2011 and 2019. Nearly all empirical papers focused on quantitative or qualitative methodologies, which is perhaps indicative of a split within the community but also reflective of a bridging opportunity through mixed-methods research. A total of 532 AERA 2019 papers included “complexity” in the title or abstract, but only 6 papers originated from SIG-17, suggesting that although educational researchers may be interested in complexity, only a small percentage are affiliated with the SIG.

Significance. This analysis provides a critical window into the trend of increasing interest in complexity-informed scholarship. It reveals that the SIG reflects only a small portion of this interest, and reveals specific actions that SIG members might take to widen their impact on the field.

Author

• Joanna K. Garner, The Center for Educational Partnerships