Complexity Theory in Educational Systems

A - very - brief summary of Paul Cillier's article, Boundaries, Hierarchies and Networks in Complex Systems (2001), and a connection to wicked problems....

In their article, Inescapable Wickedity (2014) education researchers Jordan, Kleinsasser, and Roe might present the problems of education as, among other things, those which are difficult define and have no clear right or wrong answers.  To large extent, the challenges of wickedity are artifacts of the complex system in which educational systems operate and interact with.  These are ideas are further articulated in Cillier’s Boundaries, Hierarchies and Networks in Complex Systems (2001).   Cilliers describes how the various boundaries a which operate between systems are both ambiguous and shifting.  He questions the notion that traditional methods of examining flat hierarchies, network interactions and non-linearity as particularly conducive to developing a theory of complex organizations.

Cilliers, P. (2001). Boundaries, hierarchies and networks in complex systems. International Journal of Innovation Management, 5(2),135–147.