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Complexity in Education

From Horror to Passion

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

  • The book advocates an improved balance between Instrumental and Normative aspects of Professionalization
  • The book creates evidence that complexity should be embraced as a vital aspect of good quality education for an improved society and democracy
  • The book provides a large variety of innovative, empirical research and inspiring teaching practices
  • The book explores how we could educate teachers and student teachers to deal with complexity and to make well-founded, judgements

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. By Way of Introduction

  2. The Core Chapters of the Book

  3. Final Reflections

Keywords

About this book

"This volume, the result of four years of work performed by the combined research groups of Utrecht University (Faculty of Humanities) and the HU Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (Faculty of Education), focuses on the central theme of ‘Normative Professionalization’.


Drawing on a wide variety of scholars including Hannah Arendt, Gert Biesta, Harry Kunneman, Donald Schön and Chris Argyris, and engaging with professionalism, ethics, virtue and morality, this book builds the argument that learning to deal with complexity supports not only education but the personal development of teachers and the improvement of society and democracy as well. This volume presents research on a broad range of topics such as worldview education, co-teaching, moral authorship, traditional-reform perspectives on education, the discourse on citizenship, teacher education, and the question how to link religion and education. The research chapters explain the theoretical lensesand methodological approaches which have been employed to get a grip on complexity. The results have been interpreted in light of the concepts of horror complexitatis, amor complexitatis and dolor complexitatis. Guided by detailed research accounts of worldview descriptions provided by students and teachers, this framework has been enriched with the notion of a passio complexitatis. In the concluding chapters, the book advocates for an improved balance between the normative and instrumental professionalization of teachers, in order to create space for the improvement of pedagogical relations and processes and to reintroduce the moral dimensions of education. The claim throughout this book is that allowing for complexity in education – even going so far as to embrace it – is vital for the improvement of education, and a prerequisite for more authentic relationships (on the micro level) and the maintenance of a well-functioning democracy and a balanced society (on the macro level). 


This book is of interest to researchers and educators who are interested in normative professionalization, to qualitative and practice oriented researchers, to teachers and managers in primary, secondary and professional education, and to the wider public which is concerned with the significance of education for the development of a stable and sustainable society."


Editors and Affiliations

  • Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Cok Bakker

  • Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Cok Bakker, Nicolina Montesano Montessori

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Complexity in Education

  • Book Subtitle: From Horror to Passion

  • Editors: Cok Bakker, Nicolina Montesano Montessori

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-764-1

  • Publisher: SensePublishers Rotterdam

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: SensePublishers-Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-6300-764-1Published: 12 January 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XII, 298

  • Topics: Education, general

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