Systems thinking is a powerful concept in biology which can help students understand how the diversity of contexts in the biology curriculum all have similar underlying characteristics. However, it is not currently a common feature in secondary education as it is not part of the National Curriculum of England. Research on systems thinking has…

Literature reviews are required at early stages of a traditional research progression. Many systematic approaches help researchers identify relevant literature. However, there is far less support for interpreting large collections of references. Understanding the evolution of knowledge within a discipline requires an awareness of the collaborative…

Centerness is defined as a quality of multi-agent systems (groups) where agents share a common set of system goals and interact so the system will achieve those goals. A pair of measures is identified to capture the two dimensions of centerness: distance-weighted fragmentation and average goal centerness. As a case study, the measures of…

Educational institutions exist in reciprocal relations with broader social and moral ecologies. These ecologies involve interactions of networks of individuals and groups with wider aspects of culture, and are therefore broadly social, and they contain explicit or implicit content with regard to right and wrong, and are therefore moral. There is…

Accepting Newell's invitation to develop his interdisciplinary theory to address new developments, I first consider Newell's complex systems theory of interdisciplinarity. I then review developments of his theory before critiquing its merits and deficiencies. This critique is informed by recent critical realists' works that point to deficiencies…

Drawing on experiences in England over many years, this paper explores the authors' efforts to use collaborative inquiry in order to foster greater equity within schools. All of this is set within national policy contexts that emphasise increased school autonomy, competition, and accountability as central improvement strategies. It is argued that…

Many techniques have been developed to enhance learning experience with computer technology. A particularly great influence of technology on learning came with the emergence of the web and adaptive educational hypermedia systems. While the web enables users to interact and collaborate with each other to create, organize, and share knowledge via…

This paper presents an analysis of ways in which pedagogy with information and communications technologies (ICTs) may need to adapt to accommodate to a major shift in our conceptions of knowledge and learning. A holistic approach to this analysis based on Checkland's "systems thinking" suggested changes in pedagogy needed for 21st…

Purpose: This article explores the views of Smallholder Marketing Cooperatives' (SMCs) leaders and staff, to gain insight about the particular roles SMCs play in facilitating smallholders' market access. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conceptualized and executed two international workshops in which participants from 42 SMCs from 24…

Emotion research demonstrates that problems of theoretical interest or practical significance are not divided neatly along disciplinary boundaries. Researchers acknowledge both organic and social underpinnings of emotion, but the intersections between biological and structural processes can be difficult to negotiate. In this article, the authors…

Although the value of school-community partnerships is unquestioned, the reasons for success and failure are not sufficiently understood. This mixed-methods case study examines 60 years of partnering at one urban high school, using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory to better understand the effect on student development as measured by…

This study examined the strategies employed by program administrators in historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU), as they negotiate sociopolitical interests in developing continuing higher education programs. Using a qualitative research design, the analysis was guided by the Cervero and Wilson adult and continuing education program…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and RCE-Barcelona in the context of two organisations with a strategic aim to further Education for Sustainable Development. A special emphasis is put in the role that UPC has had in the creation and development of this project,…

Factors identified by 16 participants during in-depth interviews as influencing selection of speech pathology as a career were described using the Systems Theory Framework (STF, Patton & McMahon, 2006). Participants were highly likely to identify factors from the individual and social systems, but not the environmental-societal system, of the STF…

This qualitative case study reports on processes and outcomes of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded System-Wide Change for All Learners and Educators (SCALE) project at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN). It addresses a critical challenge in studying systemic reform in complex organizations: the lack of methodologies that…