Purpose: This paper aims to increase related knowledge across personal, social and ecological dimensions of sustainability and how it can be applied to support transformative learning. Design/methodology/approach: The paper provides a reflexive case study of the design, content and impact of a course on eco-justice that integrates relational…

Complexity thinking is relatively new to education research and has rarely been used to examine complex issues in physics and engineering education. Issues in higher education such as student retention have been approached from a multiplicity of perspectives and are recognized as complex. The complex system of student retention modelling in higher…

How academic disciplines are constituted and the related professional development must be viewed within their wider social, political and economic aspects. When studying the organisation, transformation and spheres of influence of professions, the Development Ecology model provides a tool for understanding the encounter between societal,…

Examines development of general organization theory, proposes an overall organization model for analysing the school, distinguishes between the school as an institution and the school as an organization, and outlines a set of conceptual tools believed to describe and analyse the school as an organization. Provides practical applications for…

A theoretical model of collective learning has been developed based on complex systems theory. The need for collective learning is illustrated by an empirical study of an "unsuccessful" organizational-renewal project in a Swedish Telecom firm. The conclusion, using chaordic systems thinking as a diagnostic framework, is that its interior…

Educational organizations, this paper asserts, are best described using a neorationalist model, which analyzes organizations as social instruments, acknowledges structural conflict, and views individuals as active participants. The paper examines traditional and modern rationalist organization theories and contrasts these with systems theory; it…

The issue of developing a new framework of industry programs for vocational education in the United States was examined in a study of the current status of programmatic structures nationally and among the 50 states. The following are among the topics that were explored: (1) the rationale for a new programmatic framework in the context of changing…

This document contains 15 papers from the information technology (IT) in vocational education and training (VET) section of an international conference on VET for lifelong learning in the information era. The following papers are included: "Adapting the System of Continuing Vocational Education for the 3rd Industrial Revolution--Experiences…