Ecologies for Learning and Practice: Emerging Ideas, Sightings, and Possibilities 9781138496859, 9781138496880, 9781351020268

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ECOLOGIES FOR LEARNING AND PRACTICE

Ecologies for Learning and Practice provides the first systematic account of the ideas of learning ecologies and ecologies of practice and locates the two concepts within the context of our contemporary world. It focuses on how individuals and society are being presented with all manner of learning challenges arising from fluidities and disruptions, which extend across all domains of life. This book examines emerging ways of understanding and living purposively in these new fluidities and provides fresh perspectives on the way we learn and achieve in such dynamic contexts. Providing an insight into the research of a range of internationally renowned contributors, this book explores diverse topics from the higher education and adult learning worlds. These include: • • • • •

The challenges faced by education systems today The concept of ecologies for learning and practice The role and responsibility of higher education institutions in advancing ecological approaches to learning The different eco-social systems of the world—local and global, economic, cultural, practical, technological, and ethical How adult learners might create and manage their own ecologies for learning and practice in order to sustain themselves and flourish

With its proposals for individual and institutional learning in the 21st century and concerns for our sustainability in a fragile world, Ecologies for Learning and Practice is an essential guide for all who seek to encourage and facilitate learning in a world that is fundamentally ecological in nature. Ronald Barnett is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, University College London, Institute of Education. Norman Jackson is Emeritus Professor, University of Surrey, and Founder of Lifewide Education.

Ecologies for Learning and Practice is an amazing book—both eye opening and optimistic. Its subtitle: Emerging Ideas, Sightings, and Possibilities precisely captures its intent and content! . . . The writers expand our own imagination of new approaches to learning, to new institutional architectures for learning in a white-water world. . . . We should congratulate [the editors] for assembling such a provocative collection of authors that helps unpack how learning can be reconstituted in an ever-changing world. –John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist of Xerox Corp and head of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Advisor to the Provost, University of Southern California, USA

ECOLOGIES FOR LEARNING AND PRACTICE Emerging Ideas, Sightings, and Possibilities

Edited by Ronald Barnett and Norman Jackson

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Ronald Barnett and Norman Jackson; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Ronald Barnett and Norman Jackson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Barnett, Ronald, 1947- editor. | Jackson, Norman, 1950- editor. Title: Ecologies for learning and practice : emerging ideas, sightings and possibilities / Edited by Ronald Barnett and Norman Jackson. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019028123 (print) | LCCN 2019028124 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138496859 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138496880 (paperback) | ISBN 9781351020268 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Learning, Psychology of. | Educational psychology. Classification: LCC LB1060 .E26 2020 (print) | LCC LB1060 (ebook) | DDC 370.15/23--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028123 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028124 ISBN: 978-1-138-49685-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-49688-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-02026-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Cenveo® Publisher Services

CONTENTS

List of f igures List of tables List of contributors 1 Introduction: Steps to ecologies for learning and practice Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett

vii ix x 1

PART 1

Towards ecologies for learning and practice

17

2 Animating systems: The ecological value of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of development Leah O’Toole, Nóirín Hayes, and Ann Marie Halpenny

19

3 Weaving ecologies for learning: Engaging imagination in place-based education Gillian Judson

32

4 Learning ecologies: Liminal states and student transformation Maggi Savin-Baden 5 Sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning: A response to systemic global dysfunction Arjen E.J.Wals

46

61

vi  Contents

PART 2

Advancing ecologies for learning and practice in higher education 6 Ecologies for learning and practice in higher education ecosystems Norman J. Jackson 7 Ecological thinking about education strategy in universities Peter Goodyear and Robert A. Ellis 8 Education and innovation ecotones Ann Pendleton-Jullian

79 81 97 112

9 Ecosystem empowerment: Unlocking human potential through value creation Sasha Barab, Anna Arici, Earl Aguilera, and Kathryn Dutchin

129

10 Building doctoral ecologies and ecological curricula: Sprawling spaces for learning in researcher education Søren S.E. Bengtsen

146

PART 3

Ecologies for learning and practice in the world

161

11 Learning ecologies at work Karen Evans

163

12 From learning ecologies to ecologies for creative practice Norman Jackson

177

13 Learning in the cat’s cradle: Weaving learning ecologies in the city Keri Facer, Magdalena Buchczyk, Liz Bishop, Helen Bolton, Zehra Haq, Jackie Gilbert, Gideon Thomas, Jessica Tomico, and Xiujuan Wang

193

14 Society as a learning ecology: Glimpsed and now disappearing? Ronald Barnett

211

Epilogue: Practice seldom makes perfect but … Ronald Barnett and Norman Jackson

223

Author Index Subject Index

230 235

FIGURES

2.1 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6

7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 9.1 9.2

The bioecological model of development. Rhizomatic tunnel. An ecology of learning. Four spheres of sustainability learning. An ecology of learning created by a whole school approach to sustainability. Higher education ecosystems. Learning and practice ecology. An ecology of teaching practice to enable students to learn. A lifewide curriculum situated within the global ecosystem of infinite possibilities for learning, developing, and achieving. Holistic learning environment. Tool for evaluating the opportunities for higher education learners to create or co-create their own ecologies for learning in a lifewide curriculum. The core conceptual void: the processes linking strategic inputs to valued outcomes. Linking strategic inputs to environments to activities to outcomes. The horizontal dimension approach to education. Adding the vertical dimension. Engagement with context. Moving towards ‘accreditation +’. Design micro-labs to seed innovation. The ecotone and corridors. Invitational framework for designs focused on real-world value creation. Empowered ecosystem framework of innovation.

22 53 64 73 75 85 86 88 89 90

91 102 107 117 119 121 122 124 133 136

viii  Figures

9.3 ThriveCast screenshot of user feed, story connection, and thrive module. 9.4 Ten thrive modules developed for the architecting my future library. 9.5 ThriveCast feed with illustration of modes available as feed cards. 11.1 Four examples of workplace ecosystems: office, racing car garage, architect design studio, and hospital operating theatre. 12.1 The geologist’s eco-social system. 12.2 Teacher-learner-environment relationships and interactions in a learning ecology in which novice geologists are learning to make a geological map. 12.3 A field geologist’s ecology of practice for making a geological map. 12.4 Geological artefacts created during the making of a geological map. 12.5 Artefacts created during a map-making project. 12.6 The cognitive spectrum. 13.1 Cat’s Cradle. 13.2 Learning experiences quilt. 13.3 Story told by one participant in the study. 13.4 New allotment scheme. 13.5 City farm. 13.6 Hamilton House.

138 140 141 166 179

181 182 184 185 188 194 198 199 202 203 204

TABLES

4.1 4.2 4.3 7.1 10.1

Forms of liminality Depiction of movement into, through, and out of the tunnel Constellations of problem-based learning Five organizational elements Summary of types of learning spaces and the forms of support, supporters, and educational goals they contain 12.1 Applying the interactionist model developed by Dewey 13.1 Xiujuan’s experiences of learning and learning practices

50 51 56 100 150 190 199

CONTRIBUTORS

Earl Aguilera  is an Assistant Professor of Secondary Curriculum and

Instructional Technology in the Kremen School of Education and Human Development at California State University, Fresno. Anna Arici  is Research Faculty and Senior Research Scientist at the Center

for Games and Impact in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University, where she designs and researches game-infused learning ecosystems for personal growth, lifelong learning, and societal impact. Sasha Barab is Professor of Innovation in the Future of Innovation in Society,

Professor in Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, and Director of the Center for Games and Impact, Arizona State University. He is an internationally recognized learning scientist who has researched, designed, and published extensively on the challenges and opportunities of using innovation for impact, with a particular focus on the power of games. Ronald Barnett is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, University College

London Institute of Education, where he was formerly a Pro-Director and Dean. For over 30 years, he has been advancing and developing a philosophy of higher education, with his first book being The Idea of Higher Education (1990), and with a recent trilogy on what it is to understand the university. His most recent book is The Ecological University: A Feasible Utopia (2018). Søren S.E. Bengtsen is Associate Professor at Centre for Teaching Development

and Digital Media, Aarhus University, Denmark. Also, he is the Deputy Director of the research centre, Centre for Higher Education Futures (CHEF), at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. Further, he is the Chair of the

Contributors xi

international academic association Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society (PaTHES). Liz Bishop  is the Community Researcher – Reinventing Learning Cities

Project, University of Bristol, UK. Helen Boltonk is the Community Researcher – Reinventing Learning Cities

Project, University of Bristol, UK. Magdalena Buchczyk  is an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow, currently based at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMaH), Humboldt University Berlin. She works on material culture through ethnographic explorations of museums, heritage, and cities. She is interested in researching and experimenting with different knowledge practices, from learning cities, craft knowledge and practices, to exhibition making. Kathryn Dutchin is a Creative Producer and serves as Interim Associate Director

of the Center for Games and Impact, developing platforms designed to help individuals support each other in growth. Robert A. Ellis  is Dean (Learning and Teaching) across seven faculties and

schools at Griffith University with responsibility for the quality and innovation frameworks across 120 programmes, 2,000 courses, 11,000 students, and 1,000 staff. He maintains an active research programme into innovation and quality practice in education systems across the international higher education sector. His books include Students’ Experiences of E-Learning in Higher Education: The Ecology of Sustainable Innovation (2013, with Peter Goodyear) and The Education Ecology of Universities (2019, with Peter Goodyear). Karen Evans is Emeritus Professor of Education at University College London

Institute of Education. She has conducted many international, collaborative studies of learning throughout working life and has published widely. Her most recent co-authored book is titled How Non-Permanent Workers Learn and Develop (2018). Keri Facer  is Professor of Educational and Social Futures at the University

of Bristol, United Kingdom, and Zennström Professor of Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University, Sweden. She works on rethinking the relationship between educational institutions and wider society and is particularly concerned with the sorts of knowledge that may be needed to address emerging environmental, economic, social, and technological changes. Her books include Learning Futures: Education, Technology and Social Change (2011) and The Politics of Education and Technology (2013, with Neil Selwyn).

xii  Contributors

Jackie Gilbert  is the Community Researcher – Reinventing Learning Cities

Project, University of Bristol, UK. Peter Goodyear  is Professor of Education at the University of Sydney. His

research focuses on methods for the analysis and design of complex learning environments, professional education, and professional knowledge. His latest books are Epistemic Fluency and Professional Education (2017, with Lina Markauskaite) and The Education Ecology of Universities (2019, with Rob Ellis). Ann Marie Halpenny  is a Lecturer in Psychology and Human Development

at the Technological University (TU), Dublin. Her research interests include early childhood education, researching children’s experiences, child-parent relationships, and parenting styles. She is currently Chair of the Masters in Child, Family, and Community Studies in TU Dublin. Zehra Haq is the Community Researcher – Reinventing Learning Cities Project,

University of Bristol, UK. Nóirín Hayes is Visiting Professor at the School of Education, Trinity College

Dublin, and Professor Emerita, Technological University, Dublin. She researches in early childhood education and care within a bioecological framework of development and through a child rights lens, particularly focusing on early learning and development, curriculum and pedagogy, and children’s rights. Norman Jackson is Emeritus Professor of the University of Surrey and Founder of Lifewide Education and Creative Academic, community-based educational enterprises. His current work focuses on the idea of learning ecologies and ecologies of practice. His books include Learning for a Complex World: A Lifewide Concept of Learning, Education and Personal Development (2011) and Exploring Learning Ecologies (2016). Gillian Judson is Executive Director of the Centre for Imagination in Research, Culture and Education (CIRCE) at Simon Fraser University. Her scholarship focuses on the role of imagination in all learning (pre-K to higher education), imaginative and ecological teaching practices, imaginative leadership, museum education, educational program design, and educational change. Her recent books include A New Approach to Ecological Education: Engaging Students’ Imaginations in Their World (2010) and Engaging Imagination in Ecological Education: Practical Strategies for Teaching (2015). Leah O’Toole  is a Lecturer in Early Childhood Education in the Froebel

Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education in Maynooth University. Her research interests include bioecological theory, transitions,

Contributors xiii

parental involvement in children’s education, and challenging neoliberal conceptualisations of early education, and she advocates for relational, holistic, and inclusive approaches. Ann Pendleton-Jullian  is Professor and Former Director of the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State University. She is an architect, writer, and educator whose work explores the interchange between culture, environment, and technology drawing on complexity science and ecological theory. Her latest book Design Unbound: Designing for Emergence in a White Water World (2019), written with John Seely Brown, presents a new tool set for designing within complex systems and for the complex problems endemic to the 21st century. Maggi Savin-Baden  is Professor of Education at the University of Worcester. She researches staff and student experiences of learning and has authored over 50 research publications and 17 books on the impact of innovative learning, digital fluency, and cyber-influence on learning. In her spare time, she bakes, rock climbs, and does triathlons. Gideon Thomas is the Community Researcher – Reinventing Learning Cities

Project, University of Bristol, UK. Jessica Tomico  is the Community Researcher – Reinventing Learning Cities

Project, University of Bristol, UK. Arjen E.J. Wals is a Professor of Transformative Learning for Socio-Ecological Sustainability at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. He also holds the UNESCO Chair of Social Learning and Sustainable Development. His teaching and research focus on designing learning processes and learning spaces that enable people to contribute meaningful sustainability. His books include Social Learning Towards a Sustainable World (2009) and Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change (2012). Xiujuan Wang  is the Community Researcher – Reinventing Learning Cities

Project, University of Bristol, UK.

1 INTRODUCTION Steps to ecologies for learning and practice Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett

Introduction The contemporary world obliges human beings to learn and to keep on learning across and throughout their lives in order to survive and flourish. It crowds in on one, bombarding individuals with new and even bewildering experiences. In this relentless onslaught, individuals react differently. Some relish the unforeseen, the unpredictability, the uncertainty and the instability that life brings, whereas others personally resist this never-ending challenge and look for ways to marshal their defences so as to retain their existing composure (or, more accurately, pretend to a composure that was already fragile if, indeed, it existed at all). In such a context, the idea of learning ecologies has particular attractions. The idea of ecology, after all, breathes a sense of life and living, of relationships, of connectivity and interdependence, of growth and renewal, of sustainability, of evolution and resilience, and of elements being configured and working together to achieve something that the individual parts cannot achieve alone. The general setting is precisely of this nature. Individuals are interconnected with a buzzing welter of phenomena, of media, educational institutions, workplaces and social spaces, personal endeavours and relationships, and fast-flowing swirls of information, many only dimly felt. This configuration brings new experiences at least daily. The very essence of life itself constitutes an unfolding personal ecology or, more accurately, a multiplicity of overlapping and intermingling ecologies that prompt challenge, disjunction, creativity, and development. The act of learning is an ecological phenomenon that brings forth new meanings and understandings of the world and of one’s own being and identity in and with the world. The very act transforms us and the world around us. It is a learning ecology. The connotations of ecology are, however, by no means exhausted by this resumé. In their natural state, ecologies have self-sustaining properties. However,

2  Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett

as is well known, ecologies in nature may be impaired, often as a result of the interventions of humanity. So, too, with a learning ecology: We may inquire into its health. Is it balanced? Is it distorted? Is it oriented in sound and worthwhile directions? Are its dominant values legitimate and ethical? Are its purposes relevant, useful, and significant? Is it sustainable given the many competing demands that confront it? Such questions open many planes in these initial considerations, and these planes are themselves interconnected. First, the very idea of ecology links people and their ways of thinking, being, and doing in a fundamental way to the environment in which they are learning. By ‘environment’, we are not only talking about the physical environment that we can sense and perceive; we are talking also about the rich, fertile environments we can create in our minds. Fundamentally, a learning ecology is a place where learning and the environment are indivisible. Second, learning ecologies are necessarily value laden. Each of the entities— the flows of information, the objects, the relationships, the purposes, and the activities—that constitute learning ecologies is a carrier of values and is often an explicit site of values and their creation. The value-laden environment in which ecologies for learning and achievement are grown is a site where new meanings are sought and grown; indeed, learning ecologies are the primary sites for the creation of meaning in our lives. Furthermore, they are the sites for the maintenance of identity that relate to the values of individuals and to the making of new identities as individuals’ circumstances change. Third, learning ecologies are present whether or not individuals are aware of them. They emerge from the milieu that forms the circumstances and substance of individuals’ lives, their hopes and ambitions, and the challenges, disruptions, and opportunities they encounter. They happen naturally and organically, but they also form intentionally as individuals orchestrate learning ecologies for themselves to achieve the things they value. Fashionably, we may say that there are differential elements of both structure and agency at work here. Learning ecologies comprise a structure that exerts its own powers upon human beings and their environment. Human beings, in turn, have a measure of agency in relation to those ecologies. They can, and do, in significant and meaningful ways, construct and adapt their own learning ecologies for themselves. The unfolding and shaping of those learning ecologies—not least in the interplay between people’s juxtapositions of their learning ecologies with the exigencies and ambitions of life—is a never-ending life project. And this unfolding and shaping, however limited or however grand, takes place as it must within larger learning ecologies in which individuals find or place themselves. These considerations open to the idea that an ecology of learning is deeply embedded in ecologies of practice. Learning itself is practice. We cannot learn without doing something. Learning involves us in interacting with the world and the people and things in it, by experiencing and perceiving situations, trying to understand them, and responding in ways through which new meaning emerges.

Introduction 3

Fourth, and connected to the ideas of value and meaning making, our ecologies for learning are catalysts for and a means by which we tap into the things that make us the unique beings we are. They stimulate and harness our imaginations and creativity to enable us to transform ideas, relationships, materials, and everything else in the world around us, and in this process, we transform ourselves and create new value in and for the world. Fifth, it is evident that learning ecologies are not just personal matters, whether understood as collections of forces at work acting upon individuals or as learning biographies being assembled by individuals over time. Rather, learning ecologies are present at all levels of social interaction, including the societal (and even the global) level, and are deeply embedded in infinitely complex eco-social systems. It follows too, given our previous observations, that learning ecologies at the societal level are value laden and can be interrogated to see to what extent they are sound or may be impaired. We see all this vividly in the contemporary world. The rise of populism, the use and manipulation of social media, the distortion of channels of news and communication, the mis-presentation of significant elements in the political sphere, and concerns over the diminution of the public sphere of debate and open reasoned discussion are all phenomena that suggest that we are in the presence of ecosystems that are being deployed to manipulate and subvert learning at the societal, if not at the global, level. Instead of society learning about itself in a set of rational open discourses, now it exhibits—as implied—grotesquely distorted and manipulated flows of communication, causing confusion and disruption to traditional order. As a result, individuals are bombarded with data and information, and they commonly lack the resources to decipher the distortions and misinformation coming their way. In turn, the level of public understanding of complex issues decreases, and societal learning falls away, to be placed much more under the direction of the powerful battalions. In all of this, too, what counts as knowledge is characteristically skewed. The humanities become almost invisible in the wake of the stridency of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. At the same time, personal, informal, experiential learning, which might open the way to more authentic ways of comprehending the world, is down-valued in favour of data manipulation, governed by mathematical algorithms and cybernetic processes. It emerges, then, that the concept of learning ecologies poses large issues as to the character of the world and people’s situations in it. To what degree do individuals have freedom to shape their own learning journeys through their life span? To what extent, perhaps unbeknown to themselves, are those pathways influenced, shaped, and even directed by others? To what degree, too, is society collectively able to form ever-developing and well-grounded understandings of itself ? There lies here the profound matter of the possibility of the individual’s learning ecology being a vehicle for self-transcendence and self-emancipation.

4  Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett

Through his or her own learning ecology, the individual can become a better version of himself or herself. The old adage from Hamlet—‘To thine own self, be true’—can, in principle, be realised by individuals taking responsibility for continuing vigilance towards their own learning ecology. In this way, they may just be able to eke out a personal space in their own life-world that enables us to confer upon them such epithets as ‘integrity’, ‘own person’, ‘independence’, ‘autonomy’, and even ‘courageous’, ‘steadfast’, ‘steady under fire’, and ‘inspirational’. After all, the person who has a well-marshalled learning ecology of his or her own has managed to find a set of life projects that somehow hang together, that possess legitimate values, and that provide purpose to that person’s life, and that support the continually evolving identities he or she inhabits. To put it grandly, through their ecologies for learning and practice, such persons have emancipated and sustained themselves in all the hurly-burly and distortions of the contemporary world. For the curious mind, these initial considerations generate many questions to stimulate inquiry. Here are just a few. What might be meant by ‘learning ecologies’ and ‘ecologies of practice’? What is the value of seeing learning, development, and practice as ecological phenomena? What are the implications and possibilities of learning ecologies for education? Would an ecological perspective on learning help people understand their own immersion, resilience, and sustainability in a complex but fragile world? And are there particular issues in bringing the idea of learning ecologies to bear on higher education?

Orientations Throughout this book, the idea of ecology is drawn upon to frame a way of human beings perceiving, exploring, and inquiring into and making sense of phenomena such as learning, education, creativity, practice, and achievement. However, the origins of the ecological idea are founded in the branch of biological sciences dealing with the relationships and interactions of organisms with each other and with their wider natural environment. The word ‘ecology’ was coined by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866 (Stauffer, 1957) to describe the ‘economies’ of living forms. The term is derived from Greek οɩ’˜κος, meaning ‘house’ or ‘environment’, and -λογία, meaning ‘study of ’: By ‘ecology’ we mean the whole science of the relations of the organism to the environment including, in the broad sense, all the ‘conditions of existence’. (Stauffer, 1957, p. 140 translation from Haeckel, 1866, p. 286) This place or environment in which organisms live, where interactions and encounters take place, and where the conditions necessary to sustain life are

Introduction 5

available eventually became known as an ecosystem, a term first employed by Sir Arthur Tansley (1935). Ostroumov (2002) provides a concise definition: Ecosystem is the complex of interconnected living organisms inhabiting a particular area or unit of space [and time], together with their environment and all their interrelationships and relationships with the environment. (Ostroumov, 2002, p. 141) The interactions between organism and organism and organism and environment, and what emerges from these interactions, are fundamental to the biological sense of ecology. Within its ecosystem(s), an organism creates an ecology for living through which it fulfils essential daily needs such as feeding, sheltering, resting, and procreating. The ecosystem contains a myriad of organism-created ecologies for living, which interact as organisms compete for, consume, recycle, and produce resources in order to sustain themselves and their offspring. In this way, organisms individually and collectively help maintain and sustain the ecosystem as a whole. A proposition underlying this book is that a parallel conceptualisation can be applied to human ecological systems—the set of relationships and interactions among people and other organisms, resources, and environments for the purpose of living. However, when people are the dominant organism in an ecosystem, living involves much more than sustaining life. Although all organisms learn to live with, and when necessary adapt to, their environment, ‘learning’—understood as the making and sharing of new meanings—becomes a force for significant activity and change in human eco-social systems (Lemke, 2000). Learning enables human society to advance, by using resources, reconstructing existing environments, and creating entirely new environments from our imagination. Unfortunately, some of the ways we are changing the environment also pose the greatest threat not only to our own ecosystem, but also to the ecosystems of every other living organism. Learning is a lifelong and a lifewide process ( Jackson, 2011; Barnett, 2011). Individuals learn in many ways; in many different social, personal, and virtual ‘spaces’; and often contemporaneously. As they learn, they change, but how do they cope with and manage their own transformations in the many different parts of their lives? Our suggestion is that such transformations are more easily understood if we can appreciate the ecological nature of becoming and of our being in the world. A concern for ecological awareness, learning, and action can be construed as a response to wicked problems posed by the turbulent, liquid world of today and tomorrow. Rittel and Weber (1973) defined such problems as those social system problems that ‘are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications of the whole system are thoroughly confusing’ (Buchanan, 1995, p. 14). Buchanan argues for an ecological way of thinking—‘design thinking’—that draws on the natural, social, and humanistic

6  Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett

sciences in addressing wicked problems, the greatest of which is that of sustaining the planet so as to enable all ecosystems to flourish: In the coming decades, the survival of humanity will depend on our ecological literacy, on our ability to understand the basic principles of ecology and to live accordingly. (Capra, 2013, p. 202) Such ecological thinking, then, is bound up with ecologically considerate actions. Such ecological considerateness, too, is necessary to build a resilient and sustainable society that cares about the whole world and not just itself. This book contributes to the development of such an ecological literacy by illuminating learning in general as an ecological phenomenon and more particularly the matter of such learning within formal educational systems. The question, ‘How do we prepare people not just to sustain themselves through a long and complex lifetime of learning, but also to play a conscious and active role in sustaining the future world?’ is both an educational and an ecological matter.

Towards an ecology of learning and practice Humans are fundamentally ecological beings, and making ecological sense of the world is at the root of much wisdom for survival. Ecological thinking, and the meaning we create through such thinking, is constructivist in nature—we construct our own knowledge and understanding through our interactions in and with the world, experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences (Bruner, 1990; Piaget, 1972). Learning ecologies and ecologies of practice enable us to experience the world so that our sensory, cognitive, and emotional selves can construct meaning. Like so many theories of learning, the roots of ecological thinking about learning and practice can be traced to the thinking of John Dewey. He understood human experience as a continuously developing interaction between acting individuals and their environments. His insights are highly relevant to contemporary thinking about ecologies for learning and practice. Experience . . . is not a matter of mind being passively affected by objects, nor a matter of mind receiving and filtering sensory data from an external world. It is rather an exchange, a transaction, between an organism and the physical and social factors within its environment. . . . When we experience something, we act upon it, we do something with it; then we suffer or undergo the consequences. We do something to the thing and then it does something to us in return. . . . experience is an activity in and by the organism by which the organism maintains integration with its environment. (Dewey, 1916 MW9, p. 146) (cited by Burke, Hester, and Talisse, 2002, p. xiv)

Introduction 7

The idea that we are immersed in an ecological world that requires us to think and behave ecologically is not new. This was the central tenet of Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972), who was fond of saying, ‘that the mind is an ecological system and that . . . ideas, like introduced seeds, can only take root and flourish according to the nature of the system receiving them’ (cited by Levy and Rappaport, 1982, p. 381). According to Goodbun (2012), Bateson believed that the human self ‘can only be understood as an ecological phenomenon, both embodied and moreover extended into its environment. ‘The total self-corrective unit which . . . “thinks”, “acts” and “decides”, is a system whose boundaries do not at all coincide with the boundaries either of the body or of what is popularly called the “self ” or “consciousness”’ (Bateson, 1972, p. 331). Gibson extended Bateson’s ecological reasoning through his theory of visual perception by introducing the idea of affordances: ‘The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill’ (Gibson, 1979, p. 127). Indeed, ‘[t]he meaning or value of a thing consists of what it affords’ (Gibson, 1982, p. 407). For example, in the human environment, a cup affords grasping and also the possibility of drinking (if, for instance, it contains water). Affordances provide a way of seeing the world as a meaning-laden environment offering countless opportunities for actions and countless constraints on actions. The world is full of potential, and not only of things. ‘An affordance is an action possibility formed by the relationship between an agent and its environment’ (Nye and Silverman, 2012). Bateson’s ideas influenced other philosophers, for example, Félix Guattari, whose conception of three interacting and interdependent ecologies of mind, society, and environment (Guattari, 2000) grew from the idea of three ecologies in Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Guattari believed that the complexity of the relationship between humans and the natural world was concealed by the way we typically perceive and separate cultural and natural systems and argued for a new ecosophy of mutually intertwined thought and action: [W]ithout modifications to the social and material environment, there can be no change in mentalities. Here, we are in the presence of a circle that leads me to postulate the necessity of founding an “ecosophy” that would link environmental ecology to social ecology and mental ecology. (Guattari and Genosko, 1996, p. 264) Ecosophy, accordingly, is a philosophy of ecology, a turning toward ecology as a metaphor and as way of perceiving, interpreting, relating to and interacting with natural and cultural worlds in formation. Arne Naess (1973) was the first to use the term to embrace a profound awareness and sensitivity to how individual, institutional, and societal actions can adversely affect our natural environment. His thinking paved the way for the educational movement that encourages and develops ecological thinking and action by engaging learners through their participation in the natural world (see, for example, Chapter 3 in this volume).

8  Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett

Guattari’s vision of ecology as the intersection of the natural and material world with culture, social institutions, and ideologies/discourses points to the interactional character of our relationships to and with things, people, institutions, and the world more generally. Although his ideas have influenced other philosophers (see, for example, the ecological idea of a university proffered by Barnett [2018]), they have had, until now, relatively little impact on educational practice. Yet such ecosophical work can turn even everyday experiences and objects into subjects of inquiry and invite us to look at the contexts we inhabit; to critically examine assemblages of people and their activities involving objects, machines, ideas, places, spaces, and environments (Hochman, 2014, p. 67); and to work out their relationships, connectivities, and interdependencies. As Hochman points out, ‘to educate ecosophically we must become cartographers of human experience’ (2014, p. 67). We would argue, in turn, that to think and practice ecosophically we must become cartographers of our own experiences ( Jackson, 2016; and Chapter 12 of this volume). Mapping and analysing one’s own multitudinous experiences is a learning process and a rich source of learning in itself. The first significant step towards applying an ecological perspective to learning and development was made in the 1970s by developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979). He introduced his ecological paradigm for interpreting human development in these terms: In order to understand human development, one must consider the entire ecological system in which growth occurs. This system is composed of five socially organized subsystems that help support and guide human growth. They range from the microsystem, which refers to the relationship between a developing person and the immediate environment, such as school and family, to the macro-system, which refers to institutional patterns of culture, such as the economy, customs and bodies of knowledge. (Bronfenbrenner, 1994, p. 1643) At the core of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory are three important ideas that feature prominently in a second stage of the development of his ecological ideas, which he termed ‘bioecological theory’ (Bronfenbrenner, 2001, 2005; see also Chapter 2 in this volume). First, the central force in development is the active person: shaping environments, evoking responses from them, and reacting to them. Second, a fundamental premise of ecological system theory is its phenomenological nature: “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas & Thomas, 1929, p. 572). Finally, because different environments will have different affordances and will be responded to in different ways by different individuals . . . one will find ecological niches in which distinct processes and outcomes will be observed. (Darling, 2007, p. 204)

Introduction 9

Anthropologist Tim Ingold has explained the interactive and interdependent relationship we have with our environment and laid the foundations for a deeper understanding of the ideas and dynamics of learning ecologies and ecologies of practices. A properly ecological approach . . . is one that would take, as its point of departure, the whole-organism-in-its-environment. In other words, ‘organism plus environment’ should denote not a compound of two things, but one indivisible totality. That totality is, in effect, a developmental system . . . and an ecology of life . . . is one that would deal with the dynamics of such systems. (Ingold, 2000, p. 16) In human ecosystems, people live in their complex environments—physical, social, and virtual—and within cultural, historical, and emerging social contexts. In their lives, too, people are constantly consuming, recycling, and producing information and other resources as they act and learn to accomplish the things that matter to themselves and to the wider society. Like any other ecosystem, eco-social systems are complex, dynamic, self-organising entities whose patterns of behaviours are emergent. Jay Lemke (1994, 1995, 1997, 2000) has done much to advance this thinking: A human community is a special kind of ecosystem. . . . What is so special about ecosocial systems among all other possible ecosystems is not that they contain us and our things, but that our behavior within the system, and so the overall dynamics of the system as a whole, depends not just on the principles that govern the flow of matter and energy in all ecosystems, but also on what those flows mean for us. (Lemke, 1997, p. 40) Consequently, eco-social systems are sites for the shared making and remaking of meanings, which is itself an ecological (relational, interactional, interdependent, and developmental) process. Thus, eco-social systems are developmental systems (Lemke, 1997) with an evolutionary trajectory in which each stage of development creates the conditions for the next stage of development. The same is true of ecologies within which learning takes place. Baker (1999) was the first person to recognise the important role played by particular pedagogical practices, which he termed ‘guided participation’, in enabling learners to develop themselves in order to practise. He introduced his theory of ecological learning through a story about learning to fish with his father. The story also reveals the power of narrative in communicating the form of the ecology: For me, learning to fish with my father and brother is a metaphor for a theory of guided participation and for a theory of ecological learning. . . . I learned

10  Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett

a new skill through the expert guidance of a more accomplished practitioner . . . not by interrupting his fishing but allowing us to join it. . . . We were “instructed” in fishing not by lectures on the shore-long expositions on Dad’s theory of fish, bait and equipment . . . but rather through participatory trial and error, emulation, and occasional advice and assistance. (Baker, 1999, p. 2) The internet changed forever the environment in which we learn and communicate and how we access, develop, use, and share information. Not surprisingly, such a profound change provided a catalyst for ecological ways of thinking about learning and learning ecosystems. Brown (2000) likened the way people were using the World Wide Web to a ‘new ecology of learning’, which he characterised as: an open, complex, adaptive system comprising elements that are dynamic and interdependent—a collection of overlapping communities of interest (virtual), cross-pollinating with each other, constantly evolving and largely self-organising. (Brown, 2000, p. 19) Richardson (2002) applied these ideas to higher education and visualised an ecology of learning as a ubiquitous learning environment in which (p. 48): 1. ‘Students have access to the open ecology where they can search for, locate, and quickly access elements of learning that address their immediate needs. Students use the ecology to construct and organize personalized, unique interactions with the content.’ 2. A learning ecology must support social learning by enabling learners to engage in collaborative activities or ‘to self-organize into discussion groups where students can explore learning topics . . . [and] discuss and share insights within their specialized communities of practice.’ 3. ‘The instructional design and content elements that form learning ecology must be dynamic and interdependent.’ Different pedagogical approaches can be used to create ‘a learning system that adapts to different student needs.’ Barron (2006) applied the idea of a learning ecologies to the learning practices, environments, and means by which young people developed their digital literacies. Her research discovered that learners developed their digital fluency through activities and experiences in many different places, spaces, and contexts, and through a range of activities and diverse sources of help, both inside and outside school. Her definition of a personal learning ecology emphasises: the set of contexts found in physical or virtual spaces that provide opportunities for learning. Each context is comprised of a unique configuration

Introduction 11

of activities, material resources, relationships and the interactions that emerge from them. (Barron, 2006, p. 195) Barron’s work inspired one of us to explore the idea of personal learning ecologies in his own everyday practices and circumstances ( Jackson, 2016). We do not claim to be exhaustive in this short review of the history of ideas that are relevant to our inquiry. Rather, we have aimed to provide a sense of the way the idea of ecology has been developed and applied to learning and to practices within which learning is embedded. The ideas outlined here provide a historical foundation for the concepts and theories developed throughout this book.

‘Ecology’: meaning, model, and metaphor The power in the idea of ecology is that it can be applied in many contexts and used in three different ways, namely meaning, model, and metaphor (Pickett, Kolasa, and Jones, 1994). Implicitly, at least, all ecological approaches to exploring learning and practice contain the following three dimensions—a core definition that is neutral in scale and constraint, the capacity of the model to be adaptable to different cases, and a metaphoric aspect (Pickett et al., 1994; Pickett and Cadenasso, 2002). The first dimension, that of ‘meaning’, comes into play in relation to a question such as, ‘What is an ecosystem?’ However, for the definition to be used in a given situation, a domain and a variety of features must be specified ( Jax, 1998). ‘Learning’, ‘development’, ‘education’, and ‘practice’ are the most important domains being explored in this book. The value in ecological ideas is that they are applicable to any case where organisms and environments interact. However, the power of general definitions can only be used effectively if there is a framework or way to organise cases and approaches. Therefore, that second dimension of the ecological concept is required—namely, a model to specify how the abstract definition is being used in a specific case or range of cases ( Jax, 1998). Models are necessary to translate any general definition into usable tools (Pickett et al., 1994) so that the parts, interactions, activities, and scope of the system of interest can be specified and understood. Contributors to this volume have been encouraged to offer their own ideas and models of learning ecology, which may take many forms. The third dimension of the ecological idea is that of a metaphor for a type of structure or behaviour. Structural metaphors include the organism(s) stimulating and sustaining growth or competing for and consuming resources, whereas behavioural metaphors relate, for example, to resilience, adaption, or fragility (Cronon, 1995). Meaning, model, and metaphor can be considered as related dimensions of the ecological concept, and they combine in synergistic ways. A task for authors throughout this book has been to utilise the potential in the ecological perspective

12  Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett

and to bring out that potential in the contexts of the particular ideas, cases, and situations they are exploring.

Concluding thoughts The ideas of learning ecologies and ecologies of practice are inclusive ideas. They embrace learning and practice when we engage and achieve in instructional environments; when we participate in the ecologies for learning that teachers create; when we engage and achieve in other social, technological, or natural environments; and when we engage in ecologies for learning that we create for ourselves. They are also ideas that align with constructivist views of learning; we construct our ecologies for learning and practice to enable us to develop our knowledge and understanding, albeit within real-world situations. The ideas of learning ecologies and ecologies of practice—within which ecologies for learning are embedded—carry hope: hope that by persons, communities, organisations, and societies learning about themselves and caring for the consequences of their actions, the world might sustain itself. And connected to this hope is value: the ecologies we create to achieve something are the means by which we develop new meaning. However, we should also be wary of the idea of ecology when we connect it to learning and to practice. The very interconnectedness of the world contains potential for powerful forces to exert a malign influence. Human and social learning might not be an absolute good. The smartphone can aid interaction and gains in understanding, but it also presents a space in which powerful corporations and agencies, unbeknown to the user, can manipulate human and societal perceptions, emotions, and reactions. They can and do interfere with and distort the ecological process of learning and behaving in ways that ultimately may inhibit or damage our flourishing. The idea of learning as an ecological phenomenon acknowledges all of this. An ecology, after all, is far from being marked by stability and harmony. Ecologies in nature exhibit competition and even mortal conflict—the survival of one organism at the expense of another. The implementation of an ecology for learning may encounter all sorts of issues and moral dilemmas causing conflict and requiring negotiation, compromise, and resolution. However, ecology in nature, at least where social behaviour and activity are concerned, also involves cooperation and collaboration as well as competition. So there are grounds for optimism. Human beings, both individually and collectively in societies, have powers, however limited, to sustain themselves through their own learning projects and identities, reflecting their mix of values, and which may even put virtues to work in the world; and humans can also imagine new paths of personal unfolding. In the human realm at least, the idea of an ecology is fact, belief, identity, and imagination intertwined. Our ecologies for learning and practice tap into our most powerful intrinsic motivations that drive

Introduction 13

invention and creation and encourage us to strive to be the better versions of ourselves we want to become. And so opens all manner of issues as to the paths that the framing of learning ecologies might follow, whether at the personal or social level, and whether in formal educational institutions or far beyond. Issues come thick and fast. What are the significant features of the world in which learning ecologies have to be worked out? And what might be the role of our systems and institutions for education in this working out? Are learning ecologies better viewed from the inside, so to speak, looking out to the world, as personal and social projects, or from the outside, as just parts of still wider—and probably dysfunctioning—eco-social systems? What room might there be for imagination in shaping learning ecologies? Or are these sophisticated human–environmental orchestrations fundamentally dependent on and inspired by imagination and creativity? Tensions, irradicable complexity (which, once disturbed, builds upon itself to yield ever greater complexity), and matters of significance and new meaning are all present in the ecology of learning and practice.

References Baker, B. K. (1999). Learning to fish, fishing to learn: Guided Participation in the Interpersonal Ecology of Practice. Clinical Law Review, 6(1), 1–84. Barnett, R. (2011). Lifewide education: A new and transformative concept for higher education. In N. J. Jackson (Ed.), Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development (pp. 22–38). Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse Barnett, R. (2018). The ecological university: A feasible utopia. New York, NY: Routledge. Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning ecology perspective. Human Development, 49, 193–224. Retrieved from http://life-slc. org/docs/barron-self-sustainedlearning.pdf Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York, NY: Jason Aronson. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human development. In International Encyclopedia of Education (vol. 3, 2nd ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom: Elsevier. Bronfenbrenner, U. (2001).The bioecological theory of human development. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (vol. 10, pp. 6963–6970). New York, NY: Elsevier. Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005).The developing ecology of human development: Paradigm lost or paradigm regained. In U. Bronfenbrenner (Ed.), Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development (pp. 94–105). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Brown, J. S. (2000). Growing up: Digital: how the web changes work, education, and the ways people learn. Change Magazine, 32, 11–20. Bruner, J. (1990). The Jerusalem-Harvard lectures. In Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Buchanan, R. (1995). Wicked problems in design thinking. In V. Margolin & R. Buchanan (Eds.), The idea of design (pp. 3–20). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Burke, F. T., Hester, M. D. & Talisse, R. B. (Eds.) (2002) Dewey’s Logical Theory: New Studies and Interpretations. Vanderbilt University Press.

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Capra, F. (2013). Deep ecology: Educational possibilities for the twenty-first century. The NAMTA Journal, 38(1), 216. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ EJ1078054.pdf Cronon, W. (1995). Foreword and introduction. In W. Cronon (Ed.), In search of nature. Uncommon ground: Rethinking the human place in nature (pp. 19–56). New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company. Darling, N. (2007). Ecological systems theory:The person in the center of the circles. Research in Human Development, 4(3–4), 203–217. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York, NY: Macmilla. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gibson, J. J. (1982). Notes on affordances. In E.Reed & R.Jones (Eds.), Reasons for Realism: The selected essays of James J. Gibson (pp.401-418). Hillsdale, NJ: Eribaum. Goodbun, J. (2012). An ecology of mind. Architectural Review. Retrieved from https://www. architectural-review.com/rethink/an-ecology-of-mind/ Guattari, F. (2000). The three ecologies. New Brunswick, NJ: Athlone Press. Retrieved from http://www.inter-accions.org/readings/Readings_06_Extemporaneous-Cities.pdf Guattari, F., & Genosko, G. (1996). The Guattari reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Haeckel, E. (1866). Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Allgemeine Grundzige der organischen Formen- Wissenschaft, mechanisch begriindet durch die von Charles Darwin reformirte Descendenz-Theorie (2 vols.). Reimer, Berlin. Translated and quoted from Stauffer (1957). Hochman, J. (2014). Connection and difference. Philosophy of Education, 66–69. Ingold, T. (2000). Hunting and gathering as ways of perceiving the environment. In The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. Philadelphia, PA: Routledge. Jackson, N. J. (Ed.) (2011). Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. Jackson, N. J. (2016). Exploring learning ecologies. Chalk Mountain, TX: Lulu. Jax, K. (1998). Holocoen and ecosystem: On the origin and historical consequences of two concepts. Journal of the History of Biology, 31, 113–142. Lemke, J. L. (1994). Discourse, dynamics, and social change. Cultural Dynamics, 6(1), 243–275. Lemke, J. L. (1995). Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics. London, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. Lemke, J. L. (1997). Cognition, context, and learning: A social semiotic perspective. In D. Kirshner & A. Whitson (Eds.), Situated cognition: Social, semiotic, and psychological perspectives (pp. 37–56). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Lemke, J. L. (2000). Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture and Activity, 7(4), 273–290. Retrieved from http://www.jaylemke. com/storage/Scales-of-time-MCA2000.pdf Levy, R. I., & Rappaport, R. (1982). Obituaries Gregory Bateson 1904–1980. Wiley Online Library. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1982.84.2.02a00100 Naess, A. (1973). The shallow and the deep long-range ecology movement: A summary. Inquiry, 16, 95–100. Nye, B. D., & Silverman, B. G. (2012). Affordances in AI. In N. M. Seel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the sciences of learning (pp. 183–187). New York, NY: Springer. Ostroumov, S. A. (2002). New definitions of the concepts and terms ecosystem and biogeocenosis. Doklady Biological Sciences, 383, 141–143. Piaget, J. (1972). The psychology of the child. New York, NY: Basic Books. Pickett, S. T. A., & Cadenasso, M. L. (2002). The ecosystem as a multidimensional concept: Meaning, model, and metaphor. Ecosystems, 5, 1–10. Pickett, S. T. A., Kolasa, J., & Jones, C. G. (1994). Ecological understanding: The nature of theory and the theory of nature. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Introduction 15

Richardson, A. (2002) An ecology of learning and the role of elearning in the learning environment: A discussion paper. In Connecting the future: Global summit of online knowledge networks (pp. 47–51). Retrieved from http://www.educationau.edu.au/globalsummit/ papers/a_richardson.pdf Rittel, H., & Weber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155–169. Stauffer, R. C. (1957). Haeckel, Darwin, and ecology. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 32(2), 138–144. Tansley, A. G. (1935). The use and abuse of vegetational terms and concepts. Ecology, 16(3), 284–307. Thomas, W. I., & Thomas, D. (1929). The child in America (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Knopf.

PART 1

Towards ecologies for learning and practice

2 ANIMATING SYSTEMS The ecological value of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of development Leah O’Toole, Nóirín Hayes, and Ann Marie Halpenny

Introduction Understanding human development requires consideration of intricate, multifaceted networks of factors affecting physical, socioemotional, and cognitive outcomes across the life span. Human beings learn and develop in the midst of society, and the ordinary spaces, places, and people we encounter have a profound influence on us (Hayes, 2013). Each of these ever-changing and multilevel settings impacts, directly or indirectly, on patterns of development and learning. This extends beyond immediate environments, encompassing the broader sociocultural contexts in which development is embedded (Hayes, O’Toole, and Halpenny, 2017). Cultural values are reflected in the structure of settings, and in education, these values are incorporated in practice, curricula, and national standards, reflecting an increasing trend towards standardisation for learners (Ó Breacháin and O’Toole, 2013). There is a growing awareness of the diversity and multiplicity of contexts and situations in which learners learn and develop across the whole of their life experiences (Barron, 2006; Banks et al., 2007; Jackson, 2011; Jackson 2016). This perspective emphasises the multiple different contexts, environments, and systems within which human beings live, learn, and develop; the relationships between individuals and these systems; and the relationships between the systems themselves. Thus, learning and development are seen as emerging through the interaction of a person with his or her environments, viewing learning and development as ecological phenomena. One of the earliest pioneering accounts of ecologies of learning was provided by Urie Bronfenbrenner, professor of psychology and human development at Cornell University and co-founder of the national Head Start programme in the United States, which provides a wide range of early interventions in

20  Leah, Nóirín, and Halpenny

meeting the needs of young children and their families. His influential work The Ecology of Human Development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) is among the most widely referenced accounts of child development. This early work has tended to eclipse his more dynamic later theorisation that culminated in the posthumous publication of ‘The Bioecological Model of Human Development’ (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006). This chapter focuses largely on his later conceptualisation of ecological systems as animated, fluid, and potentially transformative. As Lerner observes in the foreword to a collection of Bronfenbrenner’s writings (Bronfenbrenner, 2005), the growth of dynamic, integrated and holistic approaches to considering human development in context ‘owe their origin, persuasive articulation, and refinement to the singularly creative, theoretically elegant, empirically rigorous, and humane and democratic scholarly contributions of Urie Bronfenbrenner’ (pp. ix–x). This chapter considers Bronfenbrenner’s evolving theorisation, foregrounding the interplay between the biological and ecological elements within a learning system and explaining the relevance for contemporary educational and pedagogical practices. In turn, it animates Bronfenbrenner’s theories by reference to real-life processes of education.

Evolution of bioecological theory Bronfenbrenner saw himself as a ‘scholar activist’ and recognised that to achieve a transformative impact, a developmental framework was needed to reflect the integrated, fluid nature of development and accommodate the complex interplay of influential factors. Three phases can be distinguished in the evolution of Bronfenbrenner’s thinking (Rosa and Tudge, 2013), with the first phase, the ‘ecological model’, being the most frequently referenced. Here, Bronfenbrenner conceives of individual development within a context characterised as four nested systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. Microsystems include aspects of the environment impacting on the daily life of the learner. Parents, friends, family, educators, and everyday settings compose the microsystems that exert direct influence on development. The mesosystem is a system of two or more microsystems and could include a meeting between a parent (from the family microsystem) and teacher (from the microsystem of the school). Exosystems include settings that influence learning and development but in which the individual does not directly participate, such as education policymaking. Finally, macrosystems encompass influences at the cultural level, for example, sociocultural beliefs about the value of education and the rights of children and young people in society. Bronfenbrenner (1986a, 1986b) later introduced the chronosystem, reflecting change or continuity across time and influencing each of the other systems. In the second phase, broadly between 1980 and 1994, Bronfenbrenner began to emphasise the active role played by the developing individual

Animating systems 21

within contexts, foregrounding biological components and personal characteristics. He renamed his theory as a ‘bioecological model’ to better reflect this (Tudge, Mokrova, Hatfield, and Karnik, 2009), showing how the context or environment has an impact with and through the individual’s participation. Although initially highlighting development as nested within contexts, Bronfenbrenner now placed greater emphasis on the processes and interactions that take place within and across these different contexts, animating these systems and translating contextual experiences into development. These include ‘not only the objective behaviours occurring in any given interaction but also the relevant subjective psychological states, such as beliefs and opinions of the interacting individuals’ (Rosa and Tudge, 2013, p. 249). Beyond simply highlighting the agentic role of individuals, Bronfenbrenner’s model emphasises the fluid, relational nature of learning through a focus on personal characteristics across systems influencing development. Bronfenbrenner’s increasing interest in the complex processes enabling development evoked the sense of a network of influences that was dynamic by nature. Such a ‘networked’ (as opposed to ‘nested’) model views ecological systems as ‘an overlapping arrangement of structures, each directly or indirectly connected to the others by the direct and indirect social interactions of their participants’ (Watling Neal & Neal, 2013, p. 722). No one system is a subset of the other; rather, they all interact to compose the wider context within which humans develop. In the third and final phase of Bronfenbrenner’s theorisation, he draws attention to the key concept of ‘proximal processes’: . . . throughout the life course, human development takes place through processes of progressively more complex reciprocal interaction between an active, evolving biopsychological human organism and the persons, objects, and symbols in its immediate external environment. To be effective, the interaction must occur on a fairly regular basis over extended periods of time. Such enduring forms of interaction in the immediate environment are referred to as proximal processes. (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006, p. 797) Bronfenbrenner suggests that proximal processes are the primary mechanisms in development: through engaging in these activities and interactions, children make sense of their world. The power of these processes to influence development varies based on the characteristics of the person, the immediate and remote environmental contexts, and the time periods in which they take place. To capture the integrated nature of the various elements, together they are characterised as the Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) model (Figure 2.1), and it is through proximal processes that an individual’s potential is made visible in his or her behaviours and actions.

22  Leah, Nóirín, and Halpenny Macrosystem

ia

School The Individual Sex Age Health etc.

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Neighborhood play area Le

Socia l welfare services

Time (sociohistorical conditions and time since life events)

vic

ss

ed

Exosystem

Mesosystem Microsystem

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ideologies of the

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Levels Individual Microsystem Mesosystem Exosystem Macrosystem Chronosystem

Fri en d

d es an itud Att

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Features Proximal processes Distal influences Dispositions Dynamic Integrated

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Process–Person–Context–Time: PPCT frame FIGURE 2.1 

The bioecological model of development. Adapted from Santrock (2007).

The mesosystem and learning ecologies In considering the ecology of learning across settings, both formal and informal, Bronfenbrenner’s concept of the mesosystem offers particular explanatory power. The mesosystem represents interconnections and relationships between two or more settings, such as an educational space or family, acknowledging their impact on the individual. In short, the mesosystem is a system of two or more microsystems (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006). Learning in any setting is, therefore, a function not only of experiences in that setting but of the full range of settings experienced by the person. Slesnick, Prestopnik, Meyers, and Glassman (2007) show how ‘an individual’s relationships in every setting are impacted by relationships in other settings in that individual’s life. There is . . . a chain of activity that individuals drag with them across micro-systems’ (p. 1238). In keeping with concepts of lifelong and lifewide learning (Barnett, 2011; Jackson, 2011), in the bioecological model, learning is located through time and across space. The majority of people simultaneously inhabit many different microsystems, and the intermingling of these spaces underlies learning, both formal and informal, across time (Jackson, 2011). In Bronfenbrenner’s terms, both mesosystem and chronosystem influence learning trajectories in complex and often unpredictable ways (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006). Different microsystems may operate under different religious, moral, ethical, and social norms. Thus, a multitude of narratives is continually negotiated by learners, regarding who they are and who they are becoming within potentially contrasting roles, relationships, expectations, and experiences.

Animating systems 23

Transitions across settings may offer either opportunities or threats in the mesosystem, depending on various contextual factors. This can apply to movement between informal settings like home and formal settings like schools, or movement between two formal settings, such as preschool and primary school (O’Toole, Hayes, and Mhic Mhathúna, 2014). Sometimes the links between educational settings and other microsystems are smooth and easily traversed. Individuals can recognise familiar elements from one setting to another and use the skills they have gained in one setting when moving to another. According to Bronfenbrenner (1979), facilitative mesosystems are created through ‘linkages’ that tie various microsystems together and encourage individuals to apply the learning from one setting to another. The stronger the linkages and the more consistency experienced in the mesosystem, the easier it is for learners to traverse microsystems, and learning can travel between settings. This brings to mind Jackson’s (2014) idea of a self-created learning ecology, or ‘the means by which experiences and learning are connected and integrated across the contexts and situations that constitute a person’s life’ (p. 13). Early childhood education provides an illustrative example of bioecological perspectives on the development of linkages between settings. Children’s learning and sense of agency and autonomy develop within complex webs, and interdependent relationships can reinforce their sense of identity and belonging (Kernan, 2010). Increasingly, families share the early care and education of children with various early childhood settings. These settings are part of society and have links with other educational, social, and cultural settings, providing an important bridge for children and parents from the home, through the setting, into the local community and wider society. Early childhood settings provide a particularly important networking service for families, facilitated by early childhood educators. Parental involvement in children’s education is one way to facilitate supportive activity in mesosystems in early childhood and beyond (O’Toole et al., 2019). Actively linking formal educational settings to other important environments in the lives of learners allows recognition of the rich ‘funds of knowledge’ (Hedges, 2014) they bring with them from the various contexts in which they live. From early childhood and on into primary, secondary, and third-level education, the range of contexts that learners traverse on a day-to-day basis is expanding, and there is potential for ‘culture shock’ within the mesosystem when those contexts are very different from each other (Brooker, 2015). Unfortunately, the structure of many formal educational settings fails to support the development of linkages across mesosystems and may erect barriers to transfer of learning. In bioecological terms, this is known as ‘disjuncture’ in the mesosystem (Hayes et al., 2017). As a result, adjustment to formal education can be particularly difficult for learners from backgrounds outside the dominant culture. Such learners need to come to terms with the social practices of educational settings, which are culturally embedded and may be inconsistent with home background (Skinner and O’Toole, 2018). For example, speaking a language at home that differs from

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that spoken in the educational setting may lead to adjustment challenges through a degree of dislocation and difficulties in accessing academic material (Skinner and O’Toole, 2018). It can be difficult for some immigrant learners to maintain their sense of linguistic and cultural identity, whilst making a life for themselves and succeeding in education in their new country (O’Toole et al., 2019). On entering formal education, children of minority groups often acculturate to the dominant culture more quickly than their parents (Kraftsoff and Quinn, 2009), sometimes rejecting the home language and culture in favour of the dominant language and culture (Machowska-Kosciak, 2013; 2019). Although encouraging close engagement with families is valuable, this must be handled with great respect and cultural sensitivity and in real partnership with parents, who are often the experts of experience regarding their own children (Gaylor and Spiker, 2012). Educators at all levels need to work with the cultural and linguistic norms of learners in planning and pedagogy, because they are central to learners’ identities (Siraj-Blatchford & Clarke, 2000). However, there is evidence internationally that formal educational settings often fail to do so (Hornby and Lafaele, 2011). It is little wonder, therefore, that research consistently shows achievement gaps based on language and culture (Skinner and O’Toole, 2018). However, bioecological theory illustrates that the total ecology at work is complex, with intermingling of various ecosystems, encouraging a nuanced approach to understanding educational processes. Elements of macrosystems such as socioeconomic concerns can interact with cultural factors to influence experiences within individual micro- and mesosystems. Strand (2014) analysed achievement gaps in the United Kingdom, showing that ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES) do not combine in a linear, additive manner, but rather in an intersectional way that is consistent with the bioecological emphasis on a messy, dynamic interinfluence of a multitude of factors. Findings illustrate that, among low SES students, almost all ethnic groups achieve significantly better than white British students, whereas, at high SES, only Indian students outperform their white British counterparts. Thus, through a bioecological lens, factors such as SES, gender, language, culture, religion, disability, and so on are seen to interact in a complex and dynamic way, potentially contributing to disjuncture in the mesosystems of some learners (O’Toole et al., 2019). However, contextual factors can aggravate or ameliorate potential difficulties. For example, bringing learners’ home languages into educational settings, where possible (Skinner and O’Toole, 2018), can constitute an important ‘linkage’ in learners’ mesosystems. Many educational settings attempt to create linkages through events such as intercultural days or educational classes for community members, but some argue that there is little evidence internationally of more than lip service to the ideals of partnership between formal educational settings and learners and communities from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Hornby and Lafaele, 2011). Support structures sometimes constitute attempts to shape attitudes and practices to meet the needs of educators, rather than attempting to shape education to ensure the creation of mainstream

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contexts where everyone fits in. However, some approaches to creating linkages between educational settings and traditionally marginalised groups have been successful. For example, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) scheme in Ireland, which is aimed at supporting the education of economically disadvantaged children, has achieved success both in measurable outcomes, such as literacy and numeracy rates (Kavanagh, Weir, and Moran, 2017), and also in so-called ‘softer’ outcomes, such as the development of parental involvement in children’s education through the Home-School-Community-Liaison system (O’Toole et al., 2019). Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model demands that educators acknowledge and act upon the importance of contextual knowledge, individual characteristics, environmental factors, and processes in relationships, while also taking account of macro-level factors and the sociocultural time in which development takes place, thereby supporting the potential of all learners to benefit from quality educational experiences. ‘Contextual adaptation’ with depth and breadth is required, taking account not only of physical environments, but also the emotional and relational climate within them—in Bronfenbrenner’s terms, this means consideration of both context and process. The funds of knowledge that learners bring with them to educational settings can enrich the context within which learning occurs, while also improving accessibility for traditionally marginalised groups through the power of the mesosystem. Critical and respectful consideration of issues of diversity is required in developing supportive bioecological systems for learners. Unicultural approaches may be doomed to failure and may actually widen pre-existing gaps in experience and understanding, leading to damaging levels of disjuncture in the mesosystems of learners. The bioecological lens promotes the understanding that good educational spaces provide diverse, respectful environments in which all learners’ funds of knowledge can unfold and grow. Such education is reliant on the relationships and interactions that take place within social and educational contexts over time. Bronfenbrenner refers to these relationships and interactions as ‘proximal processes’.

Proximal processes and resource characteristics in ecologies of learning Located within the microsystems of development and operating over time, proximal processes are posited as the primary engines of development, and the more recent bioecological model places greater significance on these processes of interaction than on the contexts in which they arise. This has been supported by the literature on resilience, which repeatedly highlights the importance of positive relationships in promoting and protecting human well-being, reflecting a shift toward a relational framework in life-course human developmental science and related fields (Masten and Monn, 2015). Hayes et al. (2017) show how proximal processes may provide a mechanism for transformative education: if educators focus on creating a learning environment that cultivates caring, mutually

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supportive relationships with learners, they are more likely to overcome the inertia inherent in static systems and challenge the reproductive nature of institutional or societal norms. Equally, if learners experience positive relationships, they are more likely to confront and challenge unjust practices that may reproduce educational and economic disadvantage. Positive educational relationships, therefore, empower both educator and learner, and the bioecological concept of proximal processes provides insights for educators on the creation of dynamic, potentially transformative systems as opposed to a maintenance of static, reproductive ones. The science of learning confirms that individuals are active learners, not passive absorbers. The role of educators, from a bioecological perspective, is to create contexts that invite learners to participate and to provoke curiosity, cognitive flexibility, and exploration. Fostering the development of both the metacognitive and affective dimensions to learning encourages ready, willing, and able learners (Carr, 2001), who are motivated and empowered to use their skills and applied knowledge. Bronfenbrenner refers to such skills and dispositions as ‘resource characteristics’ (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006). Within this concept, integrated metacognitive and affective development is identified as important in facilitating the acquisition, comprehension, retention, and application of what is learned; improving learning efficiency, critical thinking, and problem solving; and enabling self-regulation of learning processes and products. A current discourse in education that is consistent with the concept of resource characteristics seeks to improve student learning through unlocking ‘learning power’ (Claxton, Chambers, Powell, and Lucas, 2011). Individual resources or learning power can be considered as having two dimensions: capabilities, including skills and strategies, and dispositions, which are tendencies to learn and learn from learning. This latter dimension includes the less measurable, but no less important, side of cognitive behaviour—that is, the affective dimension, which influences the motivation or disposition to learn. Bronfenbrenner notes that dispositions can be positive (generative) or negative (disruptive). Developmentally generative dispositions involve curiosity; tendencies to initiate and engage in activity; responsiveness to initiatives by others; and readiness to defer immediate gratification in pursuit of long-term goals. Conversely, developmentally disruptive dispositions include impulsiveness; explosiveness; distractibility; and an inability to defer gratification or, at the opposite pole, apathy, inattentiveness, unresponsiveness, feelings of insecurity, or a tendency to withdraw (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006). A unique contribution of Bronfenbrenner’s work is to foreground proximal processes as the mechanisms by which individual dispositions and resource characteristics are developed. Early debates around the meaning of ‘dispositions’ to some extent fall within the traditional nature–nurture debate. Katz (1993) draws attention to an early definition of ‘dispositions’ as ‘the sum of all innate tendencies or propensities’ (English and English, 1958, p. 158), with the implication that dispositions are solely internal to the person, little influenced by external

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contexts. Conversely, Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that learning and behaviour are so situation specific that there is no such thing as dispositions, traits, or inclinations that are stable across contexts. Theories of innate personality, focusing on individual character traits, overlook the cultural embeddedness of learning and the effects of internalisation of experience. On the other hand, some sociocultural thinking neglects how individuals ‘drag’ their experiences with them from setting to setting (Slesnick et al., 2007) and the power of the mesosystem, that is, the connectivity between the microsystems within which individuals develop. Reflecting the fluid, dynamic, and transformative nature of learning, Bronfenbrenner shows that experiences gained in particular contexts become incorporated into the personal characteristics of the individual and can influence the direction of future development. Where positive, these interactions impact on the direction of development through the power of proximal processes, providing a potential buffer in less than ideal contexts. In bioecological theory, experience is internalised through the power of the proximal processes of relationships and interactions to form the basis of learning dispositions and motivation. Understanding where dispositions and motivation come from, how the inclination to apply knowledge develops, and how this might be cultivated through proximal processes is an important challenge to education because it can facilitate learning success. The bioecological model recognises the diversity of learners and the futility of expecting all learners and educators to behave in the same way, regardless of the individual characteristics and experiences they bring to a situation. It identifies an imperative for creating nurturing educational contexts in which learners feel safe to take risks and attempt challenging tasks without fear of negative judgment of competence. Much contemporary policy discourse persists in focusing solely on the role of education in enhancing society through preparing future citizens to become economically productive members of society. This has been characterised as ‘a future-focused, outcomes-driven, reductionist view of children as economic units’ (Alcock and Haggerty, 2013, p. 22) and one that may not serve learners well. The bioecological approach provides a more holistic view of education. With the current future focus of educational policy and associated practices, there is a danger that present learners and their day-to-day educational experiences are overlooked. The dominant learning outcomes discourse emphasises the product of education; it distances and renders invisible the contribution of the day-to-day practice, the ‘mechanisms and pathways’ (Duncan and Magnuson, 2011, p. 54) that are crucial to enriching capabilities from a bioecological perspective. Those curricula that emphasise prescribed learning objectives, often assessed in a standardised manner, typically benefit a particular population of learners while impeding or restricting the potential of others. The bioecological model draws attention to a joint freedom-determinism base of development, seeing individuals as simultaneously in control of their behaviour and learning, but also constrained by the circumstances in which they

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find themselves. Even very talented learners find it difficult to achieve if they are not given the opportunity to do so through access to resources such as supportive relationships and inclusive learning environments. For example, standardised assessment has repeatedly been shown to contain cultural, linguistic, and gender-based biases (MacRuairc, 2009). Using a bioecological lens, educators can support individuals to become agents and constructors of their knowledge by providing learning opportunities in a positive relational environment, rather than striving to achieve prescribed learning outcomes (Hayes and Filipovic, 2017). Realising a bioecologically informed, relational environment in practice requires ‘contextual adaptation’—deliberate and thoughtful consideration by educators to establish learning climates in which stereotypes are questioned, new challenges are tackled, and it is safe for both educators and learners to risk being wrong. Embracing uncertainties requires educators to trust in the human capacity to learn and to construct respectful relationships with the participating, agentic learner. This challenges educators to recognise the powerful role students play in their own learning across the life span. We are all learners within the educational systems we create, although some will have more experience and knowledge than others who may have a more generous imagination, wonder, and openness to new knowledge.

Conclusion The image of multiple influences on learning and development within bioecological theory may be overwhelming and lead educators to wonder, with all that seems out of their control, whether they can ever have an impact on the course of an individual’s life and learning. Unlocking the transformational potential of education depends on educators believing they have such influence, while recognising the size of this responsibility and honour. Belief in the transformative potential of education for profound change can begin with the provision and support of early education and continue into later educational settings and lifelong learning. Although systems may develop inertia and resistance to change, a central tenet of the latest version of the bioecological model is that relationships (‘proximal processes’) matter and, with careful attention, these relationships can be empowering, enabling, and transformative. The important unifying feature of Bronfenbrenner’s model is the central role of process and context as integrated and integrating mechanisms in the development of individuals across time and settings. The bioecological model and its joint freedom-determinism base advocate that educators redirect pedagogical focus towards the creation of supportive contexts through which positive relationships can develop. Education, underpinned by relationship building between learners, communities, educators, and educational levels, can be transformative through the protection and empowerment of traditionally marginalised populations. Such approaches also support agency and capacity, fostering positive social, emotional, and educational outcomes. This ethos can be hard to measure,

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but it is crucial. Rich learning environments provide opportunities for learners to explore and discover meanings in a manner that is emergent rather than prescribed. With a bioecological approach, the emphasis is on the processes generated through careful observation and documentation of learner interests and skills, providing rich, meaningful learning experiences. Working ecologically in day-to-day practice is not simple. Implicit in the reciprocal and relational practices consistent with the bioecological approach is a commitment to democratic principles that recognise the value of engaging meaningfully with individual learners. This reflects an understanding of educational settings as sites of democratic practice: learners participate collectively in interpreting experiences and shaping decisions affecting their learning and the nature of the context within which learning and development occur.

Acknowledgment This chapter draws on the more detailed exploration of the application of the bioecological model to early education found in Hayes, O’Toole, and Halpenny (2017).

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Brooker, L. (2015). Cultural capital in the preschool years. In L. Alanen, L. Brooker, & B. Mayall (Eds.), Childhood with Bourdieu (pp. 13–33). Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. Carr, M. (2001). Assessment in early childhood settings. London, United Kingdom: Paul Chapman. Claxton, G., Chambers, M., Powell, G., & Lucas, B. (2011). The learning power of school. Victoria, Australia: Hawker Brownlow Education. Duncan, G. J., & Magnuson, R. J. (2011). The nature and impact of early achievement skills, attention skills, and behavior problems. In G. J. Duncan & R. J. Murnane (Eds.), Whither opportunity: Rising inequality, schools, and children’s life chances (pp. 47–69). New York, NY: Russell Sage. English, H. B., & English, A. C. (1958). A comprehensive dictionary of psychological and psychoanalytical terms: A guide to usage. New York, NY: David McKay Company, Inc. Gaylor, E., & Spiker, D. (2012). Home visiting programs and their impact on young children’s school readiness. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. Retrieved from www. child-encyclopedia.com/sites/default/files/textes-experts/en/912/homevisitingprograms-and-their-impact-on-young-childrens-school-readiness.pdf (accessed October 9, 2016). Hayes, N. (2013). Early years practice: Getting it right from the start. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan. Hayes, N., & Filipovic, K. (2017). ‘Nurturing buds of development’: From outcomes to opportunities in early childhood practice. International Journal of Early Years Education, 26(3), 220–232. Hayes, N., O’Toole, L., & Halpenny, A. M. (2017). Introducing Bronfenbrenner: A guide for practitioners and students in early childhood education. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. Hedges, H. (2014). Children’s content learning in play provision: Competing tensions and future possibilities. In L. Brooker, M. Blaise, & S. Edwards (Eds.), The Sage handbook of play and learning in early childhood (pp. 192–203). London, United Kingdom: Sage. Hornby, G., & Lafaele, R. (2011). Barriers to parental involvement in education: An explanatory model. Educational Review, 3(1), 37–52. Jackson, N. J. (2014). Lifewide learning and education in universities and colleges: Concepts and conceptual aids. In N. Jackson & J. Willis (Eds.), Lifewide learning and education in universities and colleges. Retrieved from www.learninglives.co.uk/e-book.html Jackson, N. J. (Ed.). (2011). Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse Jackson, N. J. (2016). Exploring learning ecologies. Chalk Mountain, TX: Lulu. Katz, L. G. (1993). Dispositions: Definitions and implications for early childhood practices. Perspectives from ERIC/EECE: A Monograph Series, No. 4. Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. Kavanagh, L., Weir, S., & Moran, E. (2017). The evaluation of DEIS: Monitoring achievement and attitudes among urban primary school pupils from 2007 to 2016. Dublin, Ireland: ERC. Kernan, M. (2010). Space and place as a source of belonging and participation in urban environments: Considering the role of early childhood and care settings. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 18(2), 199–213. Kraftsoff, S., & Quinn, S. (2009). Exploratory study investigating the opinions of russian speaking parents on maintaining their children’s use of the Russian language. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies, 9(1), 65–80. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

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Machowska-Kosciak, M. (2013). A language socialization perspective on knowledge and identity construction in Irish post-primary education. In F. Farr & M. Moriarty (Eds.), Language learning and teaching: Irish research perspectives (pp. 87–110). Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang. Machowska-Kosciak, M. (2019). Language and emotions: a follow-up study of ‘moral allegiances’-the case of Wiktoria. TEANGA, the Journal of the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics, 10, 172–185. MacRuairc, G. M. (2009). ‘Dip, dip, sky blue, who’s it? NOT YOU’: Children’s experiences of standardised testing: a socio-cultural analysis. Irish Educational Studies, 28(1), 47–66. Masten, A. S., & Monn, A. R. (2015). Child and family resilience: A call for integrated science, practice, and professional training. Family Relations, 64(1), 5–21. Ó Breacháin, A., & O’Toole, L. (2013). Pedagogy or politics? Cyclical trends in literacy and numeracy in Ireland and beyond. Irish Educational Studies, 32(4), 401–419. O’Toole, L., Hayes, N., & Mhic Mhathúna, M. (2014). A bioecological perspective on educational transition. Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 140, 121–127. O’Toole, L., Kiely, J., McGillacuddy, D., O’Brien, E., & O’Keeffe, C. (2019). Parental involvement, engagement and partnership in children’s learning during the primary school years. Dublin, Ireland: National Council for Curriculum and Assessment/National Parents Council. Rosa, E. M., & Tudge, J. R. H. (2013). Urie Bronfenbrenner’s theory of human development: Its evolution from ecology to bioecology. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 5(6), 243–258. Santrock, J. (2007). Child development. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Siraj-Blatchford, I., & Clarke, P. (2000). Supporting identity, diversity and language in the early years. Buckingham, United Kingdom: Open University Press. Skinner, R., & O’Toole, B. (Eds.). (2018). Minority language pupils and the curriculum: Closing the achievement gap. Marino Institute of Education and University of Ulster. E-book. Slesnick, N., Prestopnik, J. L., Meyers, R. J., & Glassman, M. (2007). Treatment outcome for street-living, homeless youth. Addictive Behaviors, 32(6), 1237–1251. Strand, S. (2014). Ethnicity, gender, social class and achievement gaps at age 16: Intersectionality and ‘getting it’ for the white working class. Research Papers in Education, 29(2), 131–171. Tudge, J. R. H., Mokrova, I. L., Hatfield, B. E., & Karnik, R. B. (2009). Uses and misuses of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 1(4), 198–210. Watling Neal, J.W., & Neal, Z. P. (2013). Nested or networked? Future directions for ecological systems theory. Social Development, 22(4), 722–737.

3 WEAVING ECOLOGIES FOR LEARNING Engaging imagination in place-based education Gillian Judson

Introduction Education has a key role to play in encouraging and developing learners to think and act ecologically, mindful of the impacts they are having on the world around them and deeply aware of their involvement within a living world. Indeed, as Capra (2013) notes, thinking and acting in ecological ways is crucial to building a sustainable society: “In the coming decades, the survival of humanity will depend on our ecological literacy, on our ability to understand the basic principles of ecology and to live accordingly” (p. 202). The educational challenge, however, is that practices aiming to develop ecological understanding do not necessarily prove effective in terms of changing behaviour. Students may have more knowledge about global warming, rising sea levels, and thinning ozone layers, but they are not necessarily acting in ways that will address these issues (Blenkinsop, 2005, 2012; Bowers, 2003; Johnson and Manoli, 2008; Judson, 2010; O’Sullivan and Taylor, 2004; Shepard, 2018; Takahashi, 2004). Blenkinsop (2005, p. 286) comments that programmes aimed at developing students’ relationships with nature “often bemoan what they perceive as limited change in those relationships by pointing to limited change in the students’ behaviour”. Similarly, in his critique of Education for Sustainability initiatives in the context of higher education, Shepard (2018, p. 26) remarks that, ‘Having sustainability-related knowledge and skills is not enough to change behaviours’. He observes that there is ‘no evidence that, as students move through [the University], they became more concerned about various aspects of sustainability or more committed to acting in environmentally responsible ways, either in the present moment or in their adult lives’ (p. 26). And herein lies the problem; knowledge is not enough when it comes to changing how we act.

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Studies point to the important role that emotional connections to Place1 and to knowledge have on ecological values, ethics, ecologically conscious behaviour, and the will to behave in a way that is ecologically aware. Chawla and Derr (2012), Müller, Kals, and Pansa (2009), and Ramkissoon, David, Smith, and Weilerd (2013), for example, indicate that children’s feelings of emotional connection and a sense of belonging with(in) nature are significant predictors of their willingness to protect their environment and to act in other ecologically conscious ways. The educational implication is clear: developing emotional connections to the natural world should be a part of teaching and learning for ecological understanding and ecologically conscious behaviour. This emotional disaffection among learners is not surprising, however, because many ecological teaching practices fail to acknowledge the emotional and imaginative heart of ecological understanding ( Judson, 2010, 2015). Shepard (2018, p. 26) states: ‘Education for sustainability is in essence a quest for affective outcomes of values, attitudes, dispositions and behavioural intentions’. So, ecological education is emotional work: knowledge about ecological processes and principles is made meaningful and memorable through personal emotional attachments to the natural world ( Judson, 2010, 2015). The imagination also plays a crucial role because sustainability requires the ability to envision new ways of being in the world—to envision what is possible if we act in ways sensitive to the limitations of the planet. We need to reimagine our relationship with nature ( Judson, 2010). This chapter explores the learning ecology concept through the metaphor of weaving, and it introduces a pedagogical practice called Imaginative Ecological Education (IEE) as a way to engage learners emotionally and imaginatively as part of education for ecological understanding. The chapter aims to show how IEE offers a way of teaching any curriculum that pays close attention to the distinctive features of students’ emotional and imaginative lives ( Judson, 2010, 2015). It brings attention to the wonder-full features of knowledge, the learner’s somatic involvement in the world, and the situated or Place-based features of learning. These are all features of an ecological understanding of the world we hope to develop with learners now and into the future. IEE is a pedagogy and practice for teaching that may support the emergence of ecological identity—a sense of self woven within the world—by maximizing emotional and imaginative connections to Place throughout the curriculum. It is this identity, inseparable from the natural world and rooted in our emotional lives, that may support ecological understanding and a sense of stewardship or a willingness to care for the Earth (Alisat et al., 2014). The chapter concludes with an example of imaginative ecological teaching practice—A Walking Curriculum— that might help us reimagine our teaching practices, build ecological identity, and encourage the growth of ecological relationships as part of learning and human development.

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Ecological and imaginative dimensions of learning ecologies The perspectives on learning ecologies explored in this collection are diverse. And yet, they have at least two shared roots. One, all learning ecology work is relational, and two, it always involves the imagination. The diverse perspectives in this book all focus in some way on the relationships that constitute our identity formation as teachers (or other practitioners) and learners and, importantly, the meaning we ascribe to our experiences as a whole. They all reveal how our learning ecologies are shaped over time by our encounters and connections with different kinds of communities, in multiple contexts, and through diverse forms of knowledge. All perspectives envision learners as situated in webs of meaning and influence. Despite these commonalities, not all relationships are given the same attention: one aspect of this relational paradigm that is not universally acknowledged or routinely studied in learning ecology practice is the human-nature relationship. The science of ecology is a systematic study of the reciprocal relationships that connect all living things with their total environment. Terms such as ‘ecological understanding’, ‘ecological literacy’, or ‘ecological consciousness’ may have subtle differences in meaning, but on a general level, they focus on reimagining the human-nature relationship. Ecological thinking (or doing/ being/understanding) reveals an understanding of humankind’s ‘implicatedness in life’ (Orr, 2005, p. 105). As these examples indicate, ecological ways of knowing and being refer to more than interpersonal relationships: the human-nature relationship is also of primary importance. They include the development of relationships with the natural world—what some call a sense of Place. Sense of Place, here, refers to an emotional connection to some aspect of the wildness in the world. Sense of Place involves a sense of community—of being part of a network of living things that includes the human but also the ‘more-than-human world’ (Abram, 1997). Sense of Place is a relationship that can change how our students understand the world of which they are part— ultimately, it can help them reimagine their relationship with the natural and cultural communities in which they live ( Judson, 2010, 2015). Evoking a sense of wonder—an emotional connection with the magic of our storied landscapes—is one way educators can develop their students’ sense of connection within nature, no matter their age. It is important to note, too, that, in addition to reflecting a relational worldview, learning ecology work is rooted in imagination. Creating an ecology for learning to accomplish something significant requires the ability to envision the possible and overcome what might at first appear impossible. We create our own ecologies for learning, development, and achievement based on the narratives we create about our learning lives ( Jackson, 2016, pp. 11–12). This is emotionally charged work involving, centrally, the human imagination (Egan, 1997; Egan and Judson, 2015).

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Weaving: An important ecological metaphor for learning and teaching In the making of textiles, we use the word weave to describe the formation of a fabric by interlacing long threads passing in one direction with others at a right angle to them. We also use the idea of weaving when we create a complex story or process from a number of interconnected elements. When I conceptualize my learning ecology—an ecology that connects imagination, Place, knowledge, and emotion—I think of the making and the artistry of weaving. Weaving, like other ecological metaphors, portrays a sense of connection— the web, the ecosystem, the community, for example. But weaving offers some dimensions that these other metaphors do not and that capture the core of an ecological practice, in particular, the dynamic of a consciously formed process, practice, or other actions. For example, if one thinks about the teacher, Place, and topic as woven together, one can think about who, or what, is weaving. At times, the teacher is weaver; at other times, the Place. The teacher connects the topic with him- or herself, first creating the emotional connection. The teacher weaves the topics into students’ emotional and imaginative lives, and their learning is woven, too, into the natural and cultural context of Place. Place is also weaver and teacher the woven. The teacher becomes part of the weave, connected to Place through time and experience. The students, as they develop their knowledge of Place and engage emotionally and imaginatively with it, weave and are woven in Place. No one thread is more important than another; each is a strand in a kind of weave that creates the context in which education for ecological understanding can occur. When imaginative ecological educators weave these threads, they create the imaginative and emotionally vivid context for learning that ecological understanding requires. Weaving also aligns with the notion of teacher as storyteller, a weaver of tales. To teach imaginatively is to shape topics in a way that leaves students feeling something about what they are learning; this is the story form. Homer was a weaver—a weaver of tales. The term rhapsode (oral bard) originates from the Greek term rhapsoidein, meaning ‘to stitch song together’. Homer was a weaver, and so are imaginative, ecological educators, seeking to engage their own and their students’ emotions and imaginations in learning and in Place. We weave topics into our emotional and imaginative lives through seeking wonder; we are woven into Place over time, and through activeness and humility, we weave topics into Place.

Ecology of teaching In this conception of ecological teaching and learning as a process of weaving, teaching practices are infused with imagination and, in particular, with a sense of wonder—not ‘wonder’ in the context of the wide-eyed incredulity of the child, but in the context of the emotional connection to the uniqueness

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of the natural and cultural contexts in which learners live and learn. It is wonder that unites teacher, learner, topic, and Place in a ‘woven’ pattern of engagement that can connect learners emotionally with what they are learning and the Place in which they learn. The metaphor highlights three strands, or threads, that combine in imaginative ecological teaching and in our ecological learning ecologies: teacher and topic, teacher and Place, and topic and Place. No one thread is more important than another; each is a strand in a weave that creates the context in which education for ecological understanding can occur. When imaginative ecological educators weave these threads, they create the kind of imaginative and emotionally vivid context for learning that ecological understanding requires.

Teacher and topic Imaginative teaching requires an emotional connection between a teacher and a topic or subject. In order to know how to engage their students imaginatively with a topic, to evoke students’ sense of wonder, teachers must, first, be imaginatively engaged themselves. Indeed, what it suggests is that teachers find what it is that evokes their sense of wonder. This is the emotional connection that will then inform all subsequent planning for teaching. This is the source, often of ‘the story’ on a topic, the emotional and imaginative insight that will inspire the way the teacher shapes their teaching. This emotional connection is more readily formed when the teacher knows a significant amount about their topic. Teachers benefit from a sense of the emotional, imagistic, and metaphoric richness of the topics they are teaching. It is through depth of knowledge that we can situate the emotional significance of a topic that will shape our teaching. Imaginative teaching engages the teacher’s sense of wonder. The sense of wonder is one of many tools of the imagination. It ties up knowledge with emotion and imagination in a way that creates meaning. Through an active sense of wonder and depth of knowledge, the teacher can identify what is emotionally significant about it; the teacher develops an emotional connection with the topic they are teaching. From here, the teacher employs tools of the imagination— what Egan (2005) calls ‘cognitive tools’—to engage their students in discovering the wonder in the topic. Cognitive tools are the imaginative means by which we make sense of the world around us; they engage our hearts and minds (Egan, 1997). Teachers of students in primary and elementary school should employ the imaginative means that students are already employing as oral language–using beings, namely story, abstract binary oppositions, metaphor, vivid mental imagery, rhyme, rhythm, pattern, games, drama and play, and the recognition of mystery, among other tools. Employing these tools in teaching can make any topic more meaningful because they evoke imagination and emotion and connect it with particular knowledge (Egan and Judson, 2015). Teachers in middle and high school should focus on narrative structuring, the extremes of experience and limits of reality,

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the heroic, students’ sense of reality, and, of course, the sense of wonder, among other tools that come with the development of literacy, in order to ensure the emotional engagement of their students in subject matter. This cognitive-tools approach is a distinctive feature of Imaginative Education (IE), a teaching theory and practice based on the ways in which we engage emotionally and imaginatively with the world around us (Egan, 1997). It is essential to effective ecological education ( Judson, 2010, 2015) because it provides a way both to teach the curriculum in meaningful ways and to support the development of ecological understanding in ways that engage learners’ emotions. Combining the ideas and cognitive tools of IE with the contexts and ecological ways of thinking and being of ecological education is what is distinctive about the IEE approach. So, one important relationship in ecological education is teachers’ emotional connection with a topic. Teachers know deeply what they teach, they feel something for what they teach—they know what is wonderful about it. By creating an emotionally and imaginatively rich context for the students to learn, teachers maximize their students’ imaginative engagement by inspiring their intrinsic curiosity and helping them feel an emotional response to what is being learned. Teachers afford students the largest possibility to learn through engaging them with knowledge.

Teacher and place Few teachers are taught to connect what they are teaching to where they are—the Places they inhabit. Unless teachers opt to connect their teaching to the local context, the particularities of the Places in which they are teaching do not have to have anything to do with the topics at hand. Place often has nothing to do with what is being taught. For some people, this is beneficial as it allows the curriculum to be much more closely regulated and, for teachers, it seems to offer the great gift of time (Why would I develop a unit on fractions if I can download one that is already prepared for me?). From an ecological perspective, however, the placelessness of curriculum—considered by many to be one of its greatest strengths in an era of standardization—is detrimental to learning. By ignoring Place we ignore the wonder in the world around us that can engage our hearts and minds in learning. Consideration of Place is not one most teachers think about. However, in IEE, the teacher needs to have or to develop with their students what many call a ‘sense of Place’, that is, a connection to local, natural, and cultural contexts based on knowledge and emotional connection. Through an already developed sense of Place, or one that can come through active and mindful engagement in Place, teachers will be able to fulfill the twin goals of IEE—namely, facilitation of their own students’ Place-making and acknowledgement of Place as co-teacher. There is a rich body of literature in Place-Based Education and Eco­ logical Education that discusses the educational value of students’ engagement

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in the natural world for making their learning relevant and meaningful (Greenwood, 2003; Smith and Sobel, 2010; Sobel, 2008). It is also argued that a long-term sense of care for the natural world and a sense of connectedness within it stems from direct, physical engagement in nature as a child (Broom, 2017; Chawla, 2001; Chawla and Derr, 2012). The IEE approach entails further that Place-making is an imaginative act that can be developed through engaging the body and emotion in the natural world through learning (Judson, 2010). For teachers to be able to cultivate a sense of Place in their students, they must develop this relationship for themselves. The natural world, for teachers, is a source of personal emotional engagement that can shape their teaching. More than this, however, is the possibility that through a deep connection with Place, one comes to realize that it has much to teach. My assertion that we might collaboratively teach with Place will sound quite odd to the traditionally trained teacher’s ear. We may collaborate, yes, but we do so with other human beings. What does it mean to assert that Place can be co-teacher? What is required of the teacher is time, activeness, and humility. Time. IEE is ‘slow’ pedagogy; sense of Place can only develop over time. For teachers fortunate enough to work in the Places they have spent their own childhoods, this may already be developed. For most teachers, time must be spent getting to know, enjoy, and ‘breathe in’ the Place in order for an emotional connection to develop. How many teachers work in the context in which they live? How many teachers, among those who do live and work in the same place, have emotional connections with it? How many teachers have time to develop a sense of Place? Knowledge of Place is knowledge that most teachers do not have, and this might be why a standardised approach to teaching still dominates the way we plan for ecological education ( Judson, 2010). But engaging with Place is an imaginative process and requires an imaginative approach. Activeness. Acknowledging Place as teacher requires a kind of openness that one might refer to as ‘mindfulness’. To ‘co-teach’ with and in Place requires a teacher to be aware of their own embeddedness in a living world. This is an awareness that is experienced somatically. We come to relate to the natural world in a way that brings to light our connectedness. It is from this kind of immersive relationship—what Naess (2002) refers to as activeness—that we may develop the ability to see, feel, touch, taste, and hear what nature has to teach. Teachers might imagine that Place represents an ongoing kind of conversation—Can they feel it? Can they hear it? Can they listen in? If we can, through increasing knowledge of Place, enter into this conversation and become increasingly aware of the inhabitants or process of Place, then Place can truly become co-teacher. Humility. Acknowledging Place as teacher requires humility—we relinquish our well-earned titles as experts as we recognize our own ever-present ability to learn from the world around us. Two relationships now shape planning: a teacher connected to a topic by a sense of wonder and, simultaneously, a teacher opening up their sense of wonder to the natural world. Our third relationship links our topics to Place.

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Place and topic The kind of relationship to Place that supports ecological understanding is one that develops out of the other two. When a teacher is emotionally engaged with a topic and has developed or begun to develop a sense of Place through increased knowledge, emotional connection, and a sense of openness to learning from that Place, the teacher can ask the following questions: What’s the story of the topic in this Place? What does it mean here? How can students’ cognitive tools be engaged in learning about the topic in this Place? In IEE, one does not simply use the natural world to teach or practise things but, rather, considers how the Place can add to the child’s understanding of the topic. Take, for example, measurement in mathematics. A teacher could focus on the prescribed learning outcome and simply use Place as a source of things to measure. Or take writing in English. One could have students write descriptively about some aspect of the natural world. In both of these examples, the Place in its uniqueness does not add to the child’s understanding of the topic. Rather, educators should aim to consider how Place can engage the child’s sense of wonder: What questions about measurement does the Place inspire? What units of measurement could be used in the natural world? How is time determined without the clock? How do sounds contribute to animals’ sense of distance? In writing, Place can often be a source of emotional engagement and inspiration for creative writing. Students’ sense of wonder might be evoked about writing itself. Educators could have their students consider the ways the world itself has been read for centuries. We read the printed word, today, as indigenous hunters once read the tracks of animals printed on the forest floor: The earthly terrain in which we find ourselves, and upon which we depend for all our nourishment, is shot through with suggestive scrawls and traces, from the sinuous calligraphy of rivers winding across the land, inscribing arroyos and canyons into the parched earth of the desert, to the black slash burned by lightning into the trunk of an old elm… . These letters I print across the page, the scratches and scrawls you now focus upon, trailing off across the white surface, are hardly different from the footprints of prey left in the snow. (Abram, 1997, pp. 95–96) What kinds of tracks can they read? What can they learn from these tracks? Students can be mindful of the sensual nature of Place, attempting to express in words what they hear, smell, feel, touch, or taste in Place. This, the third thread, connects the teachers, students, and topics to the Place itself in ways that fulfill mandated curricular objectives, but also in ways that can develop emotional attachments with knowledge and Place simultaneously. These three threads—teacher and topic, teacher and Place, and topic and Place—create the context in which we can nurture students’ connectedness with the living world around them. They allow teachers to breathe life into

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topics by connecting them with students’ imaginations and with the real world around them. They contribute to students’ sense of self with/in the world—an ecological identity.

Engaging learners through a Walking Curriculum: Weaving sense of Place into teaching A Walking Curriculum ( Judson, 2018) quite simply means taking a walk with purpose and attention in the world outside the classroom. Its purpose is to engage students physically, emotionally, and imaginatively with their local natural environment and cultural communities, to broaden their awareness of the particularities of Place, and to evoke their sense of wonder and discovery in learning. Learners (walkers) may be asked to find different things, to change perspectives, to encounter the world differently, to seek evidence of human-nature relationships, to identify patterns, to locate natural or human systems in action, to make an artefact, or to perform something. Why walks? The simple act of taking a walk—a walk with a curricular focus or purpose—can have multiple positive consequences, many of which are much more profound than we ever imagine. For example, walking can support physical health and well-being. It can also emotionally and imaginatively engage learners by changing the context of learning (‘context’ meaning both location and the form of attention and involvement required of students). On a deeper level, walking-based practice connects curriculum topics with/in the real world. A new level of curriculum relevance can emerge for students as a result. Going even deeper, walking-based practice can support students in developing a sense of Place. Indeed, Solnit (2000) claims that a sense of Place can only be gained and developed on foot. Through walking, we can enrich our students’ sense-making abilities, we can enhance their very being, and as we go, we can seed with meaning the contexts in which we work and spend many hours. Emotional connection is the source of deep understanding of Place. So, the more we get students outside, the more, too, we help them to develop emotional connections to nature and community. When teachers use the Walking Curriculum, two things happen: (1) students become more observant of changes in a Place (based on an expected increase in familiarity), and (2) students begin to see the world differently. They notice more things. These findings are a sign that such practices can bring some wonder back to a world that can be taken for granted. The all-around-us-ness of the world is the very reason we hardly notice it.

Example of engaging learners through a Walking Curriculum I make practical use of the Walking Curriculum in my own teaching practice with teachers at the graduate level, either in master’s courses or in professional development workshops. My aims are two-fold: first, to indicate how they can embed their

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teaching in Place and, thus, make their teaching more imaginative and ecological and, second, to try to get them to nurture their own ecological identities. Before we head outside, I always set the imaginative context and tone for learning. No matter the age of the students with whom you are using a Walking Curriculum, a successful use of walking-focused outdoor activities requires learners to have the right frame of mind. So educators using this approach (whether with school-aged kids or adults) need to ensure that their students are open to seeking and identifying the affordances of Place. One way to do this is to put an imaginative spin on the idea of attention. Even though the idea of paying attention is an expectation in most classrooms, we rarely think about its story—that is, what is emotionally significant about paying attention. Particular questions are helpful in expanding and enriching discussion: What’s the go-to narrative on what we think attention looks like and what we expect of students? What attracts your attention right now? What does paying attention offer us in the world? How does it make us stronger, better, or happier? One emotionally engaging dimension I want to reveal is that our ability to focus offers us the power of differentiation; it opens us up to the sensory-rich world of which we are a part. The ability to differentiate amongst the mass of sensory information or stimuli around us has had much evolutionary value for our species. That being said, we often ignore what’s going on around us. I try to show how Walking Curriculum activities are designed to increase students’ abilities to differentiate. Through selecting different things to pay attention to on the walks, it is possible to expand students’ perceptual fields and increase their ability to observe particularities—however small—in the world around them.

Walking activities: Learning with/in Place The What’s Your Place? Walk theme seems to work best for adults if it coincides with a conversation about the Places that matter most to them. On one occasion, I was working with 18 experienced teachers enrolled in my master’s course on imagination in learning. Before doing the What’s Your Place? Walk, I paired up my students and had them do a simple walk-and-talk on this topic. As they wandered, I asked them to describe (but not name) a Place that matters to them— somewhere that would really upset them if it became the next shopping mall parking lot. They discussed the following question with their partners: What do they remember of this Place? Interestingly, 16 of the 18 students named natural Places. Many were rural areas, but about one-third of the students mentioned green spaces in urban areas. They all had strong feelings attached to these Places. When we regrouped, we looked at Place in terms of story and narrative. We pondered the following idea: the meaningful contexts, or Places, in which we live are storied. Each is shaped by the beings who currently live there, but also by those who came before. We are all part of a shared geographical and historical story. Our Places—indeed, all Places—are, thus, full of history of past experiences and stories. This history is sometimes acknowledged through Place names

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or distinctive features of landscape, but, more often than not, the memories or experiences of countless beings whose living in—and possibly loving of—a particular corner of the planet has forever shaped the context go unnamed. I invited them to reconsider the Places they named before: What’s the story of their Place? What’s their role in the story? What memories reside there? Through the What’s This Place? Walk, I sought to extend my students’ imaginative engagement with the here and now. I wanted them to generate a deeper understanding of the suburban park we were exploring next to the university campus. We returned to the idea that every Place tells us a story; aspects of that ‘story’ include diverse sociocultural, geophysical, and ecological dimensions. This walk theme had my students look at the human story and had them experience it through walking. The questions for discussion included the following: Who lived and/or worked here 50 years ago, 200 years ago, or 2,000 years ago? How have they shaped the land? What is their story? Who owns the land? Who is using the land and for what purposes? (Beames, Higgins, and Nicol, 2012, p. 53). My students were encouraged to walk the local community, seeking evidence of four dimensions of the human story: • •

•

•

The cultural aspects of a Place—What evidence is there in this Place of what the culture or society values? What are its priorities? Environmental issues/concerns—What evidence is there of different concerns about the health of the Place? How are the people in this Place conserving, preserving, or restoring it? The business and economic development in a Place—What examples are there of local economic activity? Who owns or operates local businesses? Who benefits from the trade? Social responsibility—How are people taking care of the Place and each other here? What evidence is there of social responsibility? (Beames et al., 2012)

After the community exploration, I asked my students to create a headline that would capture something of the human story of the Place. In other words, if they were reporters sent to get the story on this Place, what would they want to reveal in a headline? What engages their emotions about the Place? Do some human interests shape this Place? Does a tension exist in this Place? Where are two different needs or desires coming into conflict? For example, how are nature and humans at odds? The questions posed use different cognitive tools of IEE—all designed to increase the emotional dimensions of the learning experience. The outdoor conversations were rich and the postwalk reflective and analytical writing pieces even richer.

Concluding thoughts: Weaving, walking, and reawakening wonder in place I consider Walking Curriculum explorations with teachers as a preliminary form of what Thomashow (1995) describes as ‘ecological identity’ work. Thomashow describes different experiential and participatory activities that support learners

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in taking a look inside themselves to ‘explore, interpret, and nurture … learning spaces, the openings made possible when people are moved to contemplate their experience of nature’ (p. xiii). Ecological identity work is a long-term and authentic practice that is similar in many ways to practices discussed in this book on learning ecologies. Like work that focuses on our ‘ecological identities’, learning ecology work urges us to integrate our experiences, helping us to envision ourselves as human beings within nature, becoming aware of the wonder-full world around us. We work to remember where we live and how we live in relation to the natural world. Living sustainably—caring about the Earth and acting in ways that support its current and future well-being—requires more than knowledge of the planet’s ecological challenges. It requires us to have emotional and imaginative connections with real Places and with the flora and fauna that live in those Places. It requires us to feel by imagining the consequences of our everyday actions in these Places and current and future inhabitants of these Places. IEE is an approach that aims to educate in a way that nurtures the heart of the sustainability aim. IEE can be used to teach any learner, anywhere, at any age. It is a broad philosophy, an approach to all teaching—not just teaching science or teaching children. It is a way of engaging emotion and imagination and the body with the natural world while studying mathematics or language, arts or social studies, or science. It is a way of thinking about and planning topics so that learning engages emotion and imagination and so that Place and context come into focus. IEE draws learners’ attentions to Place, to their bodies, and to emotions and imaginations. IEE is relational and contextual—it encourages relationships of all kinds in all sorts of contexts and emphasizes relationships in the contexts in which relationships happen. If we are to live sustainably—possessing the will, awareness, and habits to act in sustainable ways—we need a means of teaching the next generation of citizens in ways that will enhance and develop their sense of embeddedness and emotional connectedness in the living world. By cultivating ecological understanding and engaging learners in experiences where they can use and apply their understanding, learners will be better prepared for appreciating the ecological nature of learning itself.

Note 1 Place is capitalised to indicate its involvement as subject in teaching for ecological understanding.

References Abram, D. (1997). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than human world. New York, NY:Vintage Press. Alisat, S., Norris, J. E., Pratt, M. W., Matsuba, M. K., & McAdams, D. P. (2014). Caring for the Earth: Generativity as a mediator for the prediction of environmental narratives from identity among activists and nonactivists. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 14(13), 177–194.

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Beames, S., Higgins, P., & Nicol, R. (2012). Learning outside the classroom: Theory and guidelines for practice. New York, NY: Routledge. (University of Edinburgh; The Moray House School of Education). Blenkinsop, S. (2005). Martin Buber: Educating for relationship. Journal of Ethics, Place and Environment, 8(3), 285–307. Blenkinsop, S. (2012). Four slogans for cultural change: An evolving place-based, imaginative and ecological learning experience. Journal of Moral Education 41(3), 353–368. Bowers, C. A. (2003). Mindful conservatism: Rethinking the ideological and educational basis of an ecologically sustainable future. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Broom, C. (2017). Exploring the relations between childhood experiences in nature and young adults’ environmental attitudes and behaviours. Australian Journal of Environmental Education. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1017/aee.2017.1 Capra, F. (2013). Deep ecology: Educational possibilities for the twenty-first century. The NAMTA Journal, 38(1). Chawla, L. (2001). Significant life experiences revisited once again: Response to vol. 5 (4) ‘Five critical commentaries on significant life experience research in environmental education’. Environmental Education Research, 7, 451–461. Chawla, L., & Derr,V. (2012). The development of conservation behaviors in childhood and youth. The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology, 527–555. Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Egan, K. (2005). An Imaginative Approach to Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Egan, K., & Judson, G. (2015). Imagination and the engaged learner: Cognitive tools for the classroom. New York, NY: Teachers’ College Press. Greenwood (formerly Gruenewald), D. (2003). Foundations of place:A multidisciplinary framework for place-conscious education. American Educational Research Journal, 40(3), 619–654. Jackson, N. (2016). Exploring learning ecologies. Chalk Mountain, TX: Lulu. Jackson, N. J., & Willis, J. (2018) (Eds.), Exploring imagination in learning: Education and practice. Creative Academic Magazine CAM11B. Retrieved from www.creativeacademic. uk/magazine.html Johnson, B., & Manoli, C. (2008). Using Bogner and Wiseman’s model of ecological values to measure the impact of an earth education programme on children’s environmental perceptions. Environmental Education Research, 40(2), 115–127. Judson, G. (2010). A new approach to ecological education: Engaging students’ imaginations in their world. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Judson, G. (2015). Engaging imagination in ecological education: Practical strategies for teaching. Vancouver, British Columbia: UBC Press. Judson, G. (2018). A walking curriculum: Evoking wonder and developing a sense of place (K-12). Vancouver, British Columbia: Canadian ISBN Service. Müller, M., Kals, E., & Pansa, R. (2009). Adolescents’ emotional affinity toward nature: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Developmental Processes, 4(1), 59–69. Naess, A. (2002). Life’s philosophy: Reason and feeling in a deeper world. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Orr, D.W. (2005). Recollection. In M. K. Stone & Z. Barlow (Eds.), Ecologica literacy: Educating our children for a sustainable world (pp. 96–106). San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books. O’Sullivan, E., & Taylor, M. M. (2004). Learning toward an ecological consciousness: Selected transformative practices. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Ramkissoon, H., David, L., Smith, G., & Weilerd, B. (2013). Relationships between place attachment, place satisfaction and pro-environmental behaviour in an Australian national park. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 21(3), 434–457.

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Shepard, K. (2018). Higher education for sustainable development. Lifewide Magazine, 20, 25–28. Smith, G., & Sobel, D. (2010). Place- and community-based education in schools (sociocultural, political, and historical studies in education). New York, NY: Routledge. Sobel, D. (2008). Childhood and nature: Design principles for educators. Portsmouth, NH: Stenhouse Publishers. Solnit, R. (2000). Wanderlust: A history of walking. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Takahashi, Y. (2004). Personal and social transformation: A complementary process toward ecological consciousness. In E. O’Sullivan & M. M. Taylor (Eds.), Learning toward an ecological consciousness: Selected transformative practices (pp. 169–182). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Thomashow, M. (1995). Ecological identity: Becoming a reflective environmentalist. London, United Kingdom: The MIT Press.

4 LEARNING ECOLOGIES Liminal states and student transformation Maggi Savin-Baden

Introduction At the heart of ecological learning are the concepts of liminality, transition, transformation, and fluency. However, for students to progress through an ecological learning journey, engagement with the liminal tunnel is necessary to pass through liminal learning zones and move into a state of learning fluency. This chapter presents the shift into the liminal tunnel and through liminal zones, the subsequent ecologies of transformation, and the transitions into different forms of learning fluency. It draws on a range of studies and literature across higher education, including work on digital fluency, learner identity, and disjunction.

Learning ecologies and liminality The central argument of this chapter is that the experience of getting stuck in learning, and the subsequent liminality, are essential to the notion of learning ecologies. Liminality in learning is experienced as being in between—in between confusion and understanding. The term ‘learning ecologies’ captures the idea that processes, spaces, contexts, and learner identities need to coalesce in an ecology for students to understand their own learning processes and the ways in which they learn best. The concept of learning ecologies seems to draw on the work of Bateson (1972), who saw the mind not as just something cognitive but rather as a network of interactions between the individual, the society, and the universe as a whole. It also relates to more recent work, such as that by Guattari (2000), Gibson (2003), and Reader (2017). Guattari argued that we have a narrow definition of ecology and this needs to broadened to include ‘ecosophy’, which are three interrelated ecologies of environmental, mental, and social worlds. Gibson

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suggests an ecological approach to understanding perceptual learning and development in which the environment and the person mutually sustain each other across the life course. More recently, this relationship between learning, ecology, and the environment has been taken up by authors such as Reader (2017), who argues for the need to engage with New Materialism and explore both the issue of human agency and the central question of what it means to become human. Learning ecologies, whilst narrowly defined in some areas of higher education, can be said to draw on wider environmental, political, and individual concerns about being human and what it means to learn. This is important in the context of models of learning that fail to recognize students’ experiences of becoming stuck in their learning. This chapter suggests that liminal ecologies of learning, the recognition of stuckness, and the subsequent liminality are vital for students’ development and growth towards becoming flexible and fluent learners.

Liminal ecologies of learning The idea of an individual learning ecology overlaps with the idea of learner identity discussed later in this chapter. Learning ecology encompasses contexts, relationships, and opportunities for engaging with people and resources through the learning process ( Jackson, 2013). Liminal ecologies of learning comprise forms of learning in which the learner co-constructs meaning, deconstructs knowledge, and locates his or her self within learning spaces that are both formal and informal. Forms of learning that enable this kind of liminal learning require the deconstruction of practices, frameworks, and what constitutes human learning. It seems that higher education is a liminal space, subject to government demands for accountability characterized (in the United Kingdom at least) by the Research Excellence Framework, the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework, and the Knowledge Exchange Framework, as well as more creeping covert forms, such as ‘transferable open educational resources’ and ‘lecture-capture’. Staff need to have the capacity and autonomy to improvise, enquire, and take intellectual risks to ensure higher education remains a place of creativity and experimentation. If higher education teachers record things or deliver the same lecture accurately in the same way repeatedly, they will be replaced. Fuller (2010, summarized from p. 15) questions what difference a university makes if everything produces knowledge or is in the business of knowledge production. The university is not just about passing on knowledge. Lectures should raise problems and questions for students, not just pass on knowledge. There is often a sense that liminal spaces or tunnels, in which these liminal zones exist, are abandoned spaces or graveyards. Liminal ecologies of learning can be mapped in ways that help learners and teachers to view the liminal as space(s) to examine both human learning relationships and as valuable suspended states where the past is held in transition while new moves toward learning fluency can be made. However, liminality can be understood in a wide variety of ways.

48  Maggi Savin-Baden

Liminality Liminality is a term that was first coined by van Gennep (1909), who described a psychological or metaphysical subjective state of being at the threshold of two existential planes. Although the term was originally applied to rites and rituals in small human groups, it was extended to whole societies by writers such as Jaspers (1953). Turner later described people in a liminal state as ‘a realm of pure possibility whence novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise’ (1995, p. 97). He suggested that those in liminal states were often ritually, symbolically, or metaphorically removed in order not to threaten the social order. Liminality also describes a sense of in-betweenness, but seems to have a stronger sense of shifting identity than the concept of metaxis, since there appear to be different forms of liminality. Metaxis (or metaxy) is the word used by Plato (360 BCE) to describe the condition of in-betweenness as one of the characteristics of being human. Plato applied it to spirituality, describing its location as being between the human and the divine. Whelan (2008) expands the notion of metaxis, claiming that ‘we humans are suspended on a web of polarities – the one and the many, eternity and time, freedom and fate, instinct and intellect, risk and safety, love and hate, to name but a few’. Liminality, however, is not a polarity; it is an all-encompassing, overwhelming interruption, bringing with it a sense of being in a suspended state. Several authors provided helpful examples of this. Sibbett and Thompson (2008) suggest that in professional development, liminality is a moratorium status similar to adolescence, where different identity shifts might be experienced. A moratorium status is where delay occurs so that exploration can happen in order to develop, create, and form an identity. This, the authors suggest, might be a form of liminality, because by undergoing this process and committing to the newly formed identity, ‘identity achievement’ occurs (Sibbett and Thompson, 2008, p. 234). Identity achievement is the idea that the identity and commitment that developed in the moratorium state are consolidated. However, if identity work does not take place, then mimicry may occur, leading to a sense of fragmentation. This fragmentation seems to happen in many curricula that are educating students for the professions, and certainly there is evidence for this in the stories of student experience (Savin-Baden, 2007). A different type of liminality is that delineated by Trafford (2008), who explored threshold concepts in PhD supervision and offers some fascinating insights into how PhD students encountered and managed threshold concepts. What is poignant is the consistent sense of conceptual lostness that students experience, as if they were slipping across diverse forms of liminality. This sense of being lost and looking for something is a response to how the liminal space is entered and negotiated. Students speak of the realisation of being lost and either needing to look for something that is present or having an expectation that this sense of lostness will disappear. Here, students seem to almost value doubt as a means of moving away from a liminal space. Instead of trying to eliminate the lostness, they appear to believe it is better to value it as a central principle of learning.

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Cook-Sather and Alter (2011) explored liminality as a threshold between established roles at which one can linger, from which one can depart, and to which one can return, such as when undergraduate students take up a liminal position between student and teacher. The study examined the students as consultants in a staff development programme. The findings demonstrated that students changed their relationships with their teachers and their responsibilities towards their own learning. The authors argue that there is a need to see student learning not as a transition from one state to another, but instead as an ‘unending process of dialogue and development in multiple indeterminate states, suspended between and among established institutional roles and mindsets, always unfinished, always requiring revisiting, revisioning, and re-enacting’ (Cook-Sather and Alter, 2011, p. 51) Mandela describes his own experience of the Xhosa rite of passage into manhood and speaks of the rituals when, after the circumcision ceremony in which he was declared a man, he returned to the hut: ‘We were now abakwetha, initiates into the world of manhood. We were looked after by an amakhankatha, or guardian, who explained the rules we had to follow if we were to enter manhood properly’ (Mandela, 1994, p. 33). The position in which Mandela found himself after circumcision was a liminal space; although declared a man, this was the space in which he was located before he would enter manhood properly. Bosetti, Kawalilak, and Patterson (2008) discuss liminality in relation to female professors’ efforts to reconstruct their professional identities in academe. The authors located four themes, which were as follows: (1) exploring the landscape; (2) professional competence and identities; (3) competition and isolation; and (4) seeking support and validation. These themes indicated that the women were seeking to claim both a sense of their competence and their professional identity. Through supporting one another and discussing their struggles, some women moved through liminality and made transitions into ‘post-heroic’ leadership. However, others going through this transition dealt with the tensions by withdrawal, working from home, or staying behind closed doors. Kofoed (2008) examined transitions in which a school pupil questions and transgresses established rules and regulations. She argues that the professionally organized setting of a school required unambiguity to be present and that only one way could be correct, which guides the way in which subjectifications are met within schools. For example, there are rules for spelling and rules for mathematics, and an adherence to these rules is reflected in the pupils’ grades and subjectification. Pupils who transgress the rules become marginalized. Kofoed (2008) poignantly remarks: ‘Liminality is the space which stretches out between the various demands for unambiguity’ (p. 209). Liminality, then, may offer a way of conceptualizing imperfect and inconclusive transitions. In terms of the costs of liminal spaces in academic life, many academics verbalize stories about liminal identities in the context of the personal costs of both undertaking a PhD and role transition into and through academe. The transition through liminality brings with it not only new knowledge and understanding

50  Maggi Savin-Baden TABLE 4.1  Forms of liminality

Form of liminality

Example

Author

Impact on learning

Moratorium status

Delay occurs or is chosen so that exploration may happen in order to develop, create, and form an identity Slipping in and out of liminal variation and across diverse forms of liminality A threshold between established roles from which one can linger and depart and to which one can return Xhosa rite of passage, after circumcision but before acceptance as a man

Sibbett and Thompson (2008)

Forming a new sense of identity, leading to identity achievement

Trafford (2008)

A feeling of being stuck in a liminal tunnel

Cook-Sather and Alter (2011)

A sense of being threshold people

Mandela (1994)

Recognition that the importance of reflection on new role and future is vital for transition Realising the value of providing support and sharing stories and struggles Accepting being othered whilst others are normalised and seeing imperfection in transitions made

Conceptual lostness Iterative liminality

In-between identities

Identity reconstruction Transgression of norms

Feeling incompetent and lacking in professional capability to undertake a new and challenging role A means of conceptualizing imperfect and inconclusive transitions

Bosetti et al. (2008) Kofoed (2008)

for the participating individual, but also often new status and identity within the community. However, to date, there is relatively little understanding of the disjunction that occurs either before the liminality or in the liminal tunnel. These studies and the impact of liminality on learning are presented in Table 4.1.

Disjunction and the liminal tunnel The liminal tunnel, as described by Land, Rattray, and Vivian (2014), begins with a portal or gateway triggered by the threshold concept or ‘disjunction’. Learners move through the tunnel through the liminal space and emerge with a shift in learner subjectivity, a discursive shift, or a shift of a conceptual, ontological (e.g., identity shift), or epistemological nature. Land et al. (2014) depict this transformation as a cognitive tunnel where the liminal space within the tunnel is entered when triggered by a threshold concept, or a ‘disjunction’, that challenges previously held ideas about something. Disjunctions are ‘spaces’ or ‘positions’ that are reached through the realization that knowledge is troublesome. For instance,

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after encountering a threshold concept, the learner will move into a liminal space that can be transitional and transformational. Learning in the liminal space often entails oscillation between different states and emotions. The liminal space is characterized by a stripping away of old identities, oscillation between states, and personal transformation (Savin-Baden, 2008). Field (2012) argues for the idea of ‘liminal identity’, the notion that such an identity can be shaped through cultural and social processes that are formed and challenged through relationships with others. In terms of transitions, it is not clear whether they are imposed from the outside or something over which people have control and choice. In a recent study (Fredholm, Henningsohn, Savin-Baden, and Silén, 2019), data were analysed using the representation of the cognitive tunnel (Land et al., 2014). Students’ narratives described their disjunction, their experience of the liminal spaces, and their resulting shift over the thresholds. Instead of focusing on a cognitive tunnel as Land et al. (2014) suggest, this was related to a particular practical experience functioning as a trigger for moving into the tunnel, learning in the tunnel, and coming out on the other side of the tunnel with a changed view. The driving forces for movement through the tunnel lay in the students’ inner motivations for learning, originating from the perceived meaning of the practical experience. The self-evident nature of the practical experience and the need to master these situations created movement and transformational learning. Table 4.2 depicts movement into, through, and out of the tunnel with triggers and consequences. It is evident here that the liminal tunnel is not merely cognitive, as Land et al. (2014) initially suggested, but ontological and rhizomatic. Ontological engagement with the liminal tunnel is concerned with shifts in identity and subjectivity, rather than just cognitive shifts; it is more than working through and solving TABLE 4.2  Depiction of movement into, through, and out of the tunnel (adapted from

Fredholm et al., 2019) Triggers to movement

Consequences

Moving into the tunnel: experiencing disjunction

Disjunction in the form of an ontological experience

Learning and developing within the tunnel while being in the liminal space Moving toward the end of the tunnel and crossing the threshold: the shift

Movement-triggered recognition of need to learn and shift Movement triggered by a sudden or gradual understanding, a stripping away of old identity, and personal transformation Confidence gained though threshold shift

Feeling confused, stuck, and frustrated; experiencing challenge to previously held beliefs Transitional learning and sometimes transformational learning An ontological shift evident in change in any or all of personal, professional, and learner identity

Exiting the tunnel

Seeing the world afresh and valuing the disjunction and subsequent shift

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a cognitive problem. It is also rhizomatic because the options for moving in, through, and out of the tunnel are complex, multifaceted, and open and require an examination of one’s learner identity and learning ecology.

Types of tunnel Liminal spaces within the liminal tunnel are suspended states and serve a transformative function, as one moves through the tunnel. Within the tunnel, people begin to re-examine their position and, in doing so, see the terrain that they then choose to move through towards the end of the tunnel. For most people, the concept of a tunnel is invariably imagined as a narrow one-directional space. In the context of liminal ecologies of learning, tunnels are rhizomatic. The rhizome, in the terms of Deleuze and Guattari (1988), is a cultural model based on the botanical rhizome. It is positioned in opposition to a root-tree system, which follows chronological lines and which looks towards pinnacles or conclusions. By contrast, the rhizome is always interconnected and ‘has no beginning or no end; it is always in the middle, between things’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, p. 25). Some liminal tunnels can be one directional; these tend to be either rites of passage or temporary disjunctions that result only in a series of transitions, rather than fundamental transformations. Thus, these tunnels are temporary, in which the eventual end point or the crossing of a threshold concept boundary is the focus. Rhizomatic tunnels are, in a sense, liminal states in which one lives, such as the priesthood, serial and long-term travellers, and politicians, and possibly serial students and authors. Rhizomatic tunnels are where transformations occur. A rhizomatic tunnel has multiple entrances and exits, as shown in Figure 4.1. The difference between transitional and transformational shifts through the tunnel is that, in a transition, there is a sense of shifting from one place to another, such as changing role, employment, or location, whereas in a transformation, there is a sense of an overwhelming life shift resulting in knowing the world differently in living, working, and learning contexts. Transformation results in a re-view of the world and one’s place within it. An example of this is the transformation that occurred for black and coloured communities in the early post-apartheid years. Daignault’s work is helpful here because he argues for performing ‘knowledge through a passageway’ through thinking aloud (1983, pp. 7–13). The idea is that the gap is the curriculum and what creates the curriculum is a composition of thinking and wisdom, ‘thinking maybe’ (Daignault, 1992, p. 202). Daignault’s work is not about crossing thresholds, but walking in between and in ways that enable students to learn critically and imaginatively and in spaces that enable disjunction to be valued and to flourish. Such flourishing can only really occur in flexible curricula where students are encouraged to think critically about what counts as knowledge. The ability to engage with critical thought (Barnett, 2000) results in students valuing flexible pedagogies and developing learning fluency.

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FIGURE 4.1 

Rhizomatic tunnel.

Prompts towards learning fluency Learning fluency is defined here as the ability to use learning media, of whatever sort, to manage knowledge and learning across diverse spaces. It includes the ability to evaluate the trustworthiness and accuracy of information and then to understand the subtext of knowledge presented, before finally placing it within a wider context. This is achieved through moving across learning landscapes, constantly sifting, exploring, and critiquing, as well as appropriating, mashing up, and recirculating. Such learning fluency tends to be evident in areas where flexible pedagogies are adopted, an example of which is problem-based learning.

Flexible pedagogies and contexts? Despite moves, in the United Kingdom at least, towards flexible pedagogies, considerable resistance does seem to remain. The question is then how teachers might create flexible pedagogies that enable students to develop their own learning ecologies. Barnett (2014) has argued for 15 conditions of flexibility, which he believes will promote flexible provision in higher education as well as ensure educational integrity. He argues that programmes should lead to a qualification that contributes to major awards and offer all students access to suitable materials and with real-time interaction with tutors and other students. In addition to other suggestions, he argues, importantly, that programmes should contain sufficient challenges so that students are likely to be cognitively and experientially

54  Maggi Savin-Baden

stretched and to be informed by a spirit of criticality appropriate to each stage of a programme of studies. If flexible pedagogies are to be adopted that focus on human beings, as Barnett (2014) suggests, then the use of behavioural objectives needs to be dismissed in favour of Stenhouse’s (1975) learning intentions. The idea of conditions of flexibility is a challenge in the face of claims by staff that students remain entrenched and still want to be given lectures and write essays—despite little reflection from academics about how students may have become quite so entrenched in the first place. Some of the questions that need to be asked in the context of a desire for flexible pedagogies are as follows: • • • • • • •

Why are objectives still useful? What are the boundaries and borders of a discipline, and who decides? To what extent does credit transfer and modularity result in flexibility? What are the most effective ways of ensuring quality? How can shifts be made away from quality standards and professional bodies that are risk averse? To what extent are disciplinary norms and learning outcomes useful in the 21st century? How can institutions become ‘unmanaged’ by rule-oriented managers?

A curriculum should be a creation and a composition, a thinking space that is complex and multilayered. Perhaps learning and the development of fluency in learning demand the ability to live and learn liminally. Such gaps and thinking spaces are not narrow and linear, but complex, multidirectional, and multilayered, similar to Corner’s (1999) mapping practices, which he names as drift, layering, and rhizome. Such curricula will encourage rhizomatic travel because the curriculum itself is a liminal learning space and encourage the development of learner identity. There is a need to refocus higher education learning on the learner and value difference in learner identity, since it is here that we see liminality writ large.

Learner identity Learner identity moves beyond but encapsulates the notion of learning approach and encompasses positions that students take up in learning situations, whether consciously or unconsciously. It is not just a sense of how one has come to be a learner in a given context, but also the perceptions about when and how one actually learns. Learner identity is not to be seen as a stable entity but as something people use to make sense of themselves and the ways in which they learn best in relation to other people and the learning environments in which they are learning. A student whose learner identity is threatened by the idea that knowledge is not certain and that there are different ways of knowing may experience conflict and disjunction. This occurs

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when the student’s concept of valid knowledge is challenged. This can be a threat or benefit to the development of learner identity, such as when a student encounters a threshold concept. Students encountering flexible pedagogies experience challenges to learner identity, often resulting in confused identities and a sense of outsiderhood. The result is a struggle with disjunction as they find themselves in a liminal land. The difficulty is that few academics speak of this land to students, share their own tunnel experiences with them, or explain to them how they can reconstitute their learner identities in these liminal spaces. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a learning approach that appears to prompt disjunction and lead students into liminal spaces. For these reasons, it is an important approach to consider in the context of learning ecologies. PBL is an example of flexible learning that engages students with liminality and, therefore, could be said to be a liminal ecology of learning

Example of liminal ecologies of learning: Constellations of PBL Since its inception in the 1980s, PBL has developed in diverse ways worldwide; yet there has been relatively little mapping of its theories, practice, or disciplinary differences. Listing specific and narrowly defined characteristics does not, in fact, untangle the philosophical conundrums of PBL. For example, there are many constellations of PBL, each affecting the possibility for flexibility within the curriculum. This has led to confusion within the academic community about which form of PBL would be the best fit for a given curriculum, since it is an approach to learning that is affected by the structural and pedagogical environment into which it is placed (i.e., the discipline or subject, the instructors, and the organization). In some areas, possibly most notably in some medical curricula, there is a sense of performative rules about how PBL should be used, but it would seem that we also need pedagogically informed guidelines. Performative rules define how learning should be and the ways that knowledge should be presented, whereas pedagogically informed guidelines do not adopt such a narrow stance but instead offer curriculum flexibility and a broad interpretation of professional body guidelines. The growing number of constellations of PBL illustrate the value placed on this approach to learning. The idea of locating different formulations of PBL as a series of constellations develops the concept that there is a broad range of PBL approaches. It helps us to see that there are patterns not just within the types of PBL, but across the different fields of practice, as exemplified in Table 4.3 (Savin-Baden, 2014). The idea of grouping PBL approaches in this way is drawn from Adorno, quoted in Bernstein (1992, p. 201), who argued for the use of constellations as ‘a juxtaposed rather than integrated cluster of changing elements that resist reduction to a common denominator, essential, core or generative first principle’.

TABLE 4.3  Constellations of problem-based learning (adapted from Savin-Baden, 2014)

Constellations

6 5 4 3 2 1 Problem-based ProblemProblemProject-led ProblemProblemlearning for based based problembased based critical learning for learning for based learning learning for design-based understanding learning practical through knowledge learning capabilities management activity Problem type Designed to Designed to Project-led Practical Design-based Knowledge promote promote resolution with action cognitive learning competence through activity Level of Solving of Management Team learning Practical ActivityCritique of interaction problem of problem and practical action focused knowledge, action skills, and context Form of Directive ActivityProject Guide to Project Coordinator of facilitation focused management practice management knowledge and skills Focus of Testing of Competence Project Competence Design Use of assessment knowledge for the management for the critique and capabilities world of world of professional across work work capabilities contexts Example Alamro and Chan, Lu, Ip, Hayashi Beaumont, Ng, Bridges, Good, Law, and Howland, and paper Schofield and Yip (2013) SavinWhitehill Thackray (2012) (2012) Baden, (2014) (2008) Conradi, and Poulton (2012)

7 Problembased learning for multimodal reasoning Managing dilemmas

8 Collaborative distributed problembased learning Defined by team in relation to practice

Taking a Critical critical stance Collaboration across boundaries Orchestrator Enabler of of learning group opportunities reflection Integrate Self and team capabilities analysis across disciplines Beaumont Chan et al. (2012) (2015)

9 Problem-based learning for transformation and social reform Seeing alternatives

Exploring and deconstructing structures and beliefs Decoder of cultures Flexible and student-led Savin-Baden, Bhakta, and Burden (2016)

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With the growth of the use of digital technology and the development of online PBL, the notion of what counts as participation is becoming increasingly complex. For example, a study was undertaken to examine human interaction with sophisticated pedagogical agents and the passive and active detection of such pedagogical agents within online PBL. A pedagogical agent (or chatbot) is a software application that can provide a humanlike interaction using a natural language interface. Examples of these are Siri, Cortana, Alexa, or the virtual online assistants found on some websites, such as Anna on the Ikea website. The study used PBL online, so as to give a focus for discussions and participation, without creating too much artificiality. It was also used with a view to developing the possibility of virtual facilitators and virtual mentors in the future (Savin-Baden et al., 2016; Burden and Savin-Baden, 2019).

Conclusion: Liminal lands and threshold people Liminal lands are inhabited by individuals such as the court jester, carers of the dying, and those working with the recently bereaved, such as clergy and funeral directors. Liminal lands are also inhabited by students as they attend university, often live away from home, study a subject intensely for a relatively short period of time whilst often being and feeling ‘in between’. [T]he notion of liminality, in classical anthropology, presumes a given end-point, marking the stage at which the novice must stop experimenting with new identities, and get to grips with the identity position that corresponds to their new, adult role. Given that such linear and unidirectional transitions are less and less the norm, there are important questions for practice arising from the normative assumptions that are embedded in many institutional practices and structures—and arguably in the underlying cultural ethos that characterises many educational institutions. (Field, 2012, p. 10) Higher education would seem to be a liminal land, not necessarily a rite of passage except perhaps for professions such as medicine or the priesthood. It is a liminal land that, in the context of learning ecologies, enables students to learn how to live in the liminal; a beginning of engagement with risk, content transition, and uncertainty. Learning ecologies are also important not only in the journeys through higher education, but also in equipping people to manage liminality across the life course. Higher education is a place where awareness, capability, and capacity can be developed but only if flexible pedagogical practices are available. Threshold people, whether students or later in life, recognise the loss of life structure and hierarchy due to the social and structural ambiguities that occur as a result of the need to create new space and different structures. Higher education it seems then is a liminal land, a place of social and structural ambiguities.

58  Maggi Savin-Baden

However, it is unclear how students are enabled to manage transition and transformation successfully, especially if learning ecologies are not embraced. ‘Learning ecologies’ seems to be a vital concept that needs to be incorporated across higher education worldwide. It is a notion that recognises that structures, cultures, and biographies affect effective engagement with learning. We have seen here that central to learning ecologies is the management of disjunction, movement through the liminal tunnel, and the recognition that for many students, higher education is where and ‘when everything, as it were, trembles in the balance’ (Turner, 1982, p. 44).

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5 SUSTAINABILITY-ORIENTED ECOLOGIES OF LEARNING A response to systemic global dysfunction Arjen E.J. Wals

Introduction A transition to a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect requires committed, critical, and competent citizens, who aspire to values that are based not purely on the material side of their existence, but also on care for fellow human beings and, indeed, other species, here and elsewhere, now and in the future. Such a transition is unimaginable if we fail to reform and to reorient our current education systems and ignore the power of education and learning. Sustainability can become a driver of educational innovation in education, while simultaneously, education and learning can become drivers of sustainability. Our schools and universities need to become a major force in helping realise the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015). A key idea put forward in this chapter is that of sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning as a blended learning space where multiple actors having different backgrounds co-create sustainability organically using a variety of tools, relations, and forms of learning. After developing this idea, I zoom in on the learning itself by introducing four interrelated and interdependent spheres or elements of sustainability-oriented learning. Before drawing some conclusions, I will present emergent whole school or whole institution approaches to sustainability that begin to resemble the learning ecologies central in this chapter. But first I will consider sustainability as a learning challenge that demands a more ecological, political, and normative approach.

Sustainability as a learning challenge Sustainability inevitably involves an element of vagueness as it is not easy to know what the most sustainable way of living is. What we might consider sustainable today might be considered unsustainable tomorrow (e.g., asbestos a long

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time ago or biofuels more recently) and what we might think is sustainable in the Netherlands might be less sustainable in Burundi (e.g., energy-saving light bulbs have higher levels of toxicity requiring a good recycling/recovering system but also require a stable power grid, both of which are not available in most parts of Burundi at this moment but are in the Netherlands). What is sustainable depends on the moment in time, on the place, and indeed also on sociocultural and economic circumstances. To add to the complexity, knowledge about sustainability and the technologies affecting sustainability are also constantly changing. This in a sense makes sustainability an emergent property of constant deliberation, questioning, negotiation, and experimentation. From a perspective of education and learning, this characteristic is both challenging and attractive. It is challenging because sustainability is not a robust scientific concept that can be taught like, for instance, photosynthesis. It is attractive in that it requires continuous sense making, contextualisation, recontextualisation, and recalibration in a world that is in constant flux. In other words: it invites learning and reflection and stimulates learning as reflection. I recognise that this inevitable vagueness can easily lead to confusion. Such confusion, combined with the apparent overwhelming nature of sustainability challenges, as manifested, for instance, in climate change, dramatic loss of biodiversity, and rampant inequity, can easily lead to fear, despair, denial, and apathy. To complicate things further, we live in a time where false truths go viral, trust in science and government is eroding, and global systemic dysfunction is rampant. How to engage people meaningfully in the resolution of urgent socioecological crises in such a time is challenging. This is not to say that we know nothing or that it is an empty concept that can be filled with anything you like, although there are interest groups in society that do exactly that to either neuter the concept or to greenwash the public. Indeed, there are some fundamental understandings, principles, and values that guide it, but these understandings (e.g., excessive greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere contribute to climate change), principles (e.g., closing cycles improves energy efficiency and minimises waste), and values (e.g., it is important to take care of all people and the entire planet, now and in the future) are not necessarily agreed upon or shared by everyone. For instance, not everyone agrees with the idea that caring for others, including others elsewhere in the world, others in the future, and other species, is important or that there needs to be a certain fairness, evenness, and solidarity in how we distribute, share, and use things. There is even disagreement, sometimes intentionally created, about whether climate change is caused by human behaviour. Such disagreement need not be problematic as long as sustainability learning provides sufficient reflexive space for the following: • • •

Participation minimally distorted by power relations Pluralism, diversity, and minority perspectives Deep consensus, but also respectful disagreement and differences

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•

Autonomous and nonconformist thinking, self-determination, and contextual differences in recognizing that conditions for this type of learning can be very different (culturally, politically, socially, economically, and ecologically)

Sustainability-oriented learning is also inevitably political as it tends to go against hegemonic forces that push for continuous growth and extraction of resources, including oil and gas, and condone rising inequity. We might say that, on the one hand, sustainability is about sustaining what we might deem to be good, whereas, on the other, it is about disrupting the systems and structures that force us to live in unhealthy ways and make unsustainability the default. Viewed as such, sustainability learning in the context of sustainability implies and, indeed, demands a certain freedom to explore alternative paths of development and new ways of thinking, valuing, and doing. If we were to make an attempt to define sustainability-oriented learning, we might say that it is an organic and relational process of continuous framing, reframing, tuning and fine-tuning, disruption and accommodation, and action and reflection, guided by a moral compass of doing what is right and inspired by an ethic of care.

Ecologies of learning Creating environments that breathe sustainability and cultures that invite critical thinking, transgression, and action is a new challenge for our schools and universities but equally for the world of governance and the private sector. How, then, do we design and/or find and include environments that invite more relational ways of being in the world (sense of place, of belonging, of bonding) and more creativity, critique, disruption, co-creation, and regeneration in our search for a more sustainable world? Here I would like to introduce the idea of ecologies of learning. There are many definitions of ecology. The Collins English Dictionary defines ecology as the study of the relationships between plants, animals, people, and their environment, and the balances or equilibria between these relationships. An ecology of place refers to the pattern and balance of relationships between plants, animals, people, and the environment in that place. The root of both ecology and economy is formed by the ancient Greek concept of oikos, which refers to home and hearth. Hearth literally means the centre of a fireplace, but figuratively, it refers to an area where the best, most active area of a city is located. Already some key concepts for sustainability learning are coming in: relationships, home, place, activity, nonhumans, fire, and balance between humans but also between humans and nonhumans. The idea of learning ecologies refers to a number of interrelated and interdependent elements that combined to make up an organic system that allows those who are actively engaged in and with the system to learn in different ways.

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In line with systems-thinking thought, the whole is more than the sum of its part. The ‘learning’ refers to the reflexive element mentioned earlier that allows for sustainability to emerge as a relational property of all interactions within the system, where there is some inevitable indeterminacy, as it is not always clear what this system or assemblage produces in terms of outcomes or how these outcomes influence the system. George Siemens (2005) uses the concept of connectivism to refer to the need for the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, complexity, and self-organization theories. Figure 5.1 shows an ecology of learning is a networked, facilitated, and mediated configuration of formal and informal forms of learning aiming for and embedded in a change challenge. A sustainabilityoriented ecology of learning essentially comprises a vital coalition of multiple stakeholders engaged in addressing a common challenge and/or realising a common vision, using a blend of learning processes in order to bring about a real, meaningful, and responsible change. The learning that emerges from within an ecology of learning is influenced by a number of inter related and interdependent factors. Although there can be multiple entry points, the filters that we use to see the world are critical in that they can both guide and blind us. Mezirow, in his definition of transformative learning, places emphasis on these filters when he writes that transformative learning is ‘the process of becoming critically aware of how and why our assumptions have come to constrain the way we perceive, understand and feel about our world’ (1991, p. 167). Eliciting, mirroring, and confronting the filters that learners bring to the assemblage (of values, frames, and perspectives) form an important component within an ecology of learning. Other factors in the assemblage include the conduits that facilitate learning (language, media, and

FIGURE 5.1 

An ecology of learning. Adapted from Siemens (2005).

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technology), the various dimensions of learning (from learning about something to learning to transform something), and the different layers of learning outcomes (from data to wisdom). Also critical are the mechanisms that facilitate and support learning and the relations that vary from carefully planned activities to more open informal and even accidental learning. Figure 5.1 identifies self-learning, mentoring-apprenticeship learning, on- and off-line learning communities, citizen science, the use of games and simulations, and informal learning as examples of different mechanisms through which people can co-create and make connections, but there are more. Recognizing and supporting ecologies of learning requires that those initiating and facilitating them trust the capacities of individual actors, the collective wisdom of a diverse community, and the power of vital coalitions of stakeholders. These ecologies of learning are nested in a wider community and often blur the boundaries between science and society, school/university and community, local and global, research and practice, and so on. Learning ecologies are often temporary configurations or arrangements between different groups in society that are in each other’s vicinity, but that usually do not see a need or possibility to work together because they are locked up in their own worlds and locked in a particular way of seeing the world. By being linked through, for instance, a common sustainability challenge or a joint vision of a more sustainable, healthier, caring, and equitable way of living, they can break out of this disconnect and unlock new possibilities. Educationally speaking, ecologies of learning invite an underlying pedagogy that is relational (allowing for, caring for, and connecting with people, places, and other species), critical (allowing for critique and questioning), actional (allowing for agency and creating change), ethical (opening up spaces for ethical considerations and moral dilemmas), and political (confrontational, transgressive, and disruptive of routines, systems, and structures when deemed appropriate). One of the questions that can be asked at this time is: What are the key characteristics of the kind of learning that will actually lead transitions towards a more sustainable way of living?

Key characteristics of sustainability-oriented learning Based on earlier research and conceptual work (Chaves and Wals, 2018; Peters and Wals, 2013; Wals and Peters, 2017; Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2015; Wals and Schwarzin, 2012), four interrelated spheres or dimensions of sustainability learning can be distinguished that refer to both processes and outcomes: (1) values and ethics (ethical dimension), (2) boundary crossing and systems thinking (relational dimension), (3) diversity and dissonance (transgressive dimension), and (4) agency and capacity to make change (transformative dimension). These spheres provide both input and output within ecologies of learning and can be found in the bottom shield of Figure 5.1. I will now elaborate on each of these spheres.

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Considering ethics and values A focus on sustainability is inevitably normative in that it stresses the importance of a certain ethic and associated values that are not agreed upon by everyone. Put simply, sustainability is about cultivating, supporting, and enacting an ethic of care (see for instance, Noddings, 2005, 2013), which refers to care about the Earth in all its richness and diversity, care about fellow humans and nonhumans, and care about future generations. Sustainability also emphasises values of solidarity, sharing, sensitivity, empathy, and compassion and intergenerational, intergender, interethnic, and interspecies equity, among others. Often, this normativity is used against an education for sustainability by those who argue that education is not supposed to be normative because it can easily become indoctrination. The counterargument is that education is always normative because it will always (re)produce particular values willingly (e.g., human rights) or unwillingly (e.g., consumerist mindsets) and that we, therefore, need to be transparent, aware, and critical about the values that are centred and the ones that are forgotten or left out intentionally or unintentionally. The latter requires us to have a critical look at what is an ongoing trend in education: the hijacking of public education by economic interests that see education as an extension of the globalizing economy. It seems that at this point in time people and the Earth are seen as servants to the economy—as opposed to the other way around—and education is seen as a critical component of a strong economy. This logic leads to education creating ‘more effective vandals of the Earth’ (Orr, 1994 p. 5). Ontologically speaking, learning as sustainability is above all a relational way of learning that enables people to deal with, among other things, complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity, loss of identity, and sense of place in a meaningful, ethical, caring, and regenerative way (see also, Wahl, 2016). From an emancipatory point of view, education is not an instrument to prescribe certain behaviours or inculcate certain values, but rather a means for meaningful engagement, for making deliberate choices, and for relating and connecting with the human and the more than human world. Living in this way is not neutral or noncommittal because it requires the necessity of judgment. In the words of Dutch pedagogue and educational philosopher Gert Biesta, ‘with each question (purposes, forms, tensions) the answer does not come from research, evidence or policy but requires judgment, and not just any judgment but normative judgment that involves values based upon/informed by a vision about education and about being human and about living together’ (2015). Biesta (2015) maintains that, ultimately, education is about finding a balance between qualification, socialisation, and subjectification in order to support the formation towards a grown-up way of being in the world in which we acknowledge and care for what is at stake in democracy, ecology, and care. This relational, critical, and caring perspective implies an emancipatory view of education and learning. Such a view is concerned with creating dialogue and discursive practices, establishing connections, entangling and

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untangling, framing and reframing, making the ordinary less ordinary, disrupting the undesirable, seeing and sensing, sensing place and identity, being and becoming, envisioning futures, and, indeed, finding moral ground and associated ethical literacies to negotiate what is right in light of existential questions. We cannot be naïve about this for there are hegemonic and highly resilient ‘neoliberal’ forces at work that are causing a systemic dysfunctionality that accelerates unsustainability at a global scale with winners and losers (Box 5.1). The silent and subtle influencing of the discourse towards consumerism, expansionism, and growth can be referred to as the hidden curriculum of unsustainability. All of this calls for a critical sustainability literacy that pays attention to ethics and values to help citizens see through matters and help them to recognise and question the powers at work and the directions in which they move, to

BOX 5.1 THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM OF UNSUSTAINABILITY Examples of hegemonic and highly resilient neoliberal forces at work that are causing a systemic ‘dysfunctionality’ are everywhere: •• •• •• ••

•• ••

The planned obsolescence of products rather than the cradle-to-cradle production process that allows for circularity The inequity and exploitation that is built in market-driven privatised economies rather than an economy built on cooperation and solidarity The reframing of human beings as consumers and lifelong workers rather than empowered citizens and lifelong learners The built-in bias towards short-term thinking, efficiency, and the maximisation of profit and materialism over the striving for a dynamic equilibrium and meaningful living The cut-and-run mentality of place- and people-less corporations rather than place-based enterprises rooted in communities The use of deceptive language to normalise or legitimise ecological malpractice, such as the use of ‘emissions’ instead of air pollution or redesigned plastic with ‘up to 30% plant-based material’ to legitimise and promote the continued use of plastic bottles

Even the widely hailed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015) can be critiqued from this perspective: while eradication of extreme poverty (SDG 1) would be widely endorsed, there is no SDG calling for the eradication of extreme wealth. Such a call could help realise SDG 8, which calls for ‘Decent work and economic growth’, but that SDG normalises a focus on continuous growth, which some consider as being at the heart of unsustainability.

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determine their role and position in the world, and to question whether they are comfortable with it or not and, if not, what to do so as to move in another direction.

Boundary crossing and systems thinking A more relational and caring way of being in the world is contingent on our ability to see and sense connections and to break through or permeate boundaries, especially those that we have artificially created (between disciplines, body and soul, urban and rural, and humans and nature). Seeing and sensing connections requires a letting go of entrenched distinctions and reductions. Connecting with other species, for instance, requires a decentring of the human, which many indigenous peoples do or have done but which, in the modern world, has become or, rather, has been made nearly impossible. A more relational way of being in the world also requires becoming aware of the narrowing perspective of trying to see parts rather than wholes, while simultaneously opening up to alternative ways of seeing the world and changing perspectives. There is an assumption here that meaning, agency, and competence all emerge from the relationships we have, not only with other humans, but also with other species and the materials around us. The relational aspect emphasises the importance of context, place, and other, and their reciprocal and interdependent interactions. For sustainability learning, this implies that attention is paid to the question of whether or not the environments in which we learn invite such relationships. The relational aspect also calls for more embodied and co-created forms of learning. Important hurdles to view the world more holistically and relationally are the false binaries that are sometimes intentionally created to simplify or to create some kind of manageable order, by boxing, categorizing, labelling, and, often juxtaposing. Nora Bateson (2016) offers the idea of transcontextual research as a form of inquiry that overcomes such false binaries (e.g., teaching-learning, research-practice, thinking-doing, human-nature, and urban-rural) by emphasising the integrity of complexity, interdependencies, and relationships. From a transcontextual perspective, phenomena can best be studied within the complexity of their larger web of relationships (Bateson, 2016), bringing not only context, but also multiple contexts into the inquiry process. To interface with any complex system without disrupting the cohesion of the interdependencies that give it integrity, we must, so Bateson argues, look at the spread of relationships that make a system robust. She introduces the concept of Warm Data Labs as an arena for cross-sector interrelational inquiry. This kind of inquiry has, as its basis, humility for the unknowability and ambiguity inherent in these forms of study. However, these inevitable uncertainties do not lead us to an abandonment of deep study. On the contrary, studying relational information from multiple contextual perspectives produces more work, takes more time, and requires larger teams, if we are to understand the pattern that connects (Bateson, 1980).

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Transcontextual research and Warm Data Labs enable us to reach behind the perceived separations of knowledge to get to the contextual knitting of definitively inseparable processes (Bateson, 2017). This contextual knitting of definitively inseparable processes also calls for a rethinking of the notion of boundaries. Boundaries can be defined as ‘socio-cultural differences leading to discontinuity in action or a discontinuity of interaction’ (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011, p. 133). In that sense, they can be seen as barriers for learning, but they can also be spaces with potential for learning and, as such, become levers of change and development because it is on the edges of different systems where friction and energy emerge that offer a chance to challenge one’s competence, reframe one’s way of thinking and seeing, expand one’s chance to explore the edge of one’s competence, learn something entirely new, and expand one’s horizon (Wenger, 2000).

Utilising diversity and dissonance Conflict and diversity can, when properly invited and guided, become drivers of transgressive learning and transformation. When dealing with wicked sustainability issues and stubborn systems, values, and routines that are deemed unhealthy, forces that can unlock, loosen up, or disrupt them appear to be critical. This unlocking, unfreezing, or loosening requires the disentanglement of construed meanings in order to create space for alternative ones that are more generative in creating more sustainable pathways. Educational psychology has long shown that conflict and dissonance are crucial levers for learning (Festinger, 1957; Berlyne, 1965). Exposure to alternative ways of seeing, framing, and interpreting can be a powerful way of creating such dissonance. Mezirow (1991) suggests that creating disorienting moments can help create the dissonance needed to change. However, for some, this may lead to too much dissonance and provoke a defensive response, leading to a tighter hold on their prior way of seeing things, whereas for others, it might lead to a reconsidering of one’s views and the adoption or co-creation of a new one. Dissonance can lead to a tipping point in one’s thinking, which triggers the reframing needed to see things from a new perspective. Such tipping points appear necessary in order to generate new thinking that can unfreeze minds and break with existing routines and systems (Wals, 2010). An important task within sustainability learning then is to help participants to appreciate and utilise difference. From ecology, we know that species living on the edges of two different ecosystems (e.g., between the steppe and the savanna) have developed qualities that help them survive in harsh conditions, which might occur in either system (very dry conditions or very wet conditions). Put simply, they had to learn to be able to respond well to very different circumstances. In cultures that strive for harmony and avoid conflict, whether this be at the level of a family, an organisation, a community, or even a whole society, this can be counterintuitive and therefore will require some effort.

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A prerequisite for appreciating, inviting, and utilising conflict, dissent, and even discomfort is that those who are seeking to bring about change should have a certain respect for each and that there is sufficient social cohesion within the group. Without such respect and social cohesion, any conflict that is created or dissonance that is invited will likely lead to unhealthy tensions and will block mutual learning (Sol, Beers, and Wals, 2013). Social interaction in a heterogeneous environment that has a high level of trust, respect, and social cohesion allows one to relate or mirror his or her ideas, insights, experiences, and feelings to those of others. In this process of relating to or mirroring, personal ideas, insights, experiences, and feelings are likely to change as a result. The ability to mirror requires empathy or a willingness to open up to and sympathise with otherness and/or the other. This mirroring may prompt the learner to rethink his or her ideas in light of alternative, possibly contesting, viewpoints or ways of thinking and feeling (Wals, 2010). In an increasingly individualised world, people’s innate ability for empathy tends to erode, undermining our potential to explore and utilise diversity (de Waal, 2009). Arts-based approaches are often used to simultaneously develop social and spatial relations as well as empathy. Examples can be found in the SUSPLACE guide for arts-based transformative methodologies (Pearson et al., 2018) and in Dylan McGarry’s ‘Empatheatre’, which refers to a ‘unique interdisciplinary theatre methodology that brings together various forms of forum, documentary, verbatim, research and applied theatre models. Empatheatre is a situated, experiential and social learning process that uses theatre and storytelling to create new opportunities for conflict transformation and to transgress cultural, bureaucratic or stigmatic boundaries within society’ (n.d.). The creation of a sustainable community requires, along with a sense of place, identity, and belonging, continuous dialogue between all involved to shape and reshape ever changing situations and conditions. A dialogue here requires that the stakeholders involved can and want to participate as equals in an open communication process that invites diversity and conflict as a driving force for transformation. Dialogue and social cohesion are prerequisites for tapping into the change potential of conflict and diversity (Wals & Heymann, 2004; Wals & Schwarzin, 2012).

Agency and transformative capacity By bombarding people with issues at scales that feel too large to surmount, we inadvertently cause them to downplay, tune out, or shut down. As Kelsey points out, ‘We have media ratings to protect children from sex or violence in movies, but we think nothing of inviting a scientist into a second-grade classroom and telling the kids the planet is ruined. A quarter of (Australian) children are so troubled about the state of the world that they honestly believe it will come to an end before they get older’ (Kelsey, 2014, p. 6). There is growing evidence from a range of countries of children and adults feeling overwhelmed and hopeless

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about the state of the environment. Despair about the future of the planet has garnered many labels in recent years, including global dread, eco-anxiety, and environmental grief. The environmental crisis is also a crisis of hope. Young people, in particular, might feel overwhelmed by sustainability issues because they have much of their lives ahead of them and may have serious doubts about having children of their own one day in the face of the declining state of our planet. Young people today are disproportionately affected by global sustainability challenges in that they will have to live longer with the socioecological and economic consequences of lifestyle and development choices made by the generations of their parents and grandparents. They will also have more time to work on these challenges, assuming that there will be enough time to still address climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, food and nutrition insecurity, and so on. Studies from different countries have shown that although many young people are optimistic about their own future, their view about the global future is quite bleak (Hicks and Holden, 2007; Tucci, Mitchell, and Goddard, 2007). Hopelessness, pessimism, and helplessness, as well as inactivity, are quite common concerning global sustainability challenges. Therefore, it is especially important to try to find out how sustainability learning can transform feelings of pessimism and hopelessness into constructive hope, a sense of agency, and the precautionary reflexivity that can steer us clear of the inaction, paralysis, and apathy that often result from the prevailing ‘wait and see until we have all the facts’ attitude among many citizens, including scientists. In their edited volume on education and climate change, Kagawa and Selby write: ‘As a fundamental contribution to climate change [prevention and adaptation], it seems that educational spaces should build a culture of learning awash with uncertainty and in which uncertainty provokes transformative yet precautionary commitment rather than paralysis’ (2010, p. 243). Hence, sustainability learning requires seeking and cultivating learning environments that invite and enable people to envision alternative futures, experiment with action, anticipate different outcomes, and learn from their attempts. All these processes combined help build transformative capacity, especially the capability of individuals and collectives to bring about fundamental change. ‘Fundamental’ is added here to stress that transformation is different from optimisation. Optimisation refers to improvement and efficiency, leaving intact the principles and values upon which a system or a practice is based (doing what we are doing, but doing it better). Transformation refers to a rethinking, reorienting, and re-designing of prevailing systems and practices and the values and principles upon which they are built (achieving better things). For instance, we can think about optimizing cars to make them more energy efficient or less dependent on fossil fuels, we can rethink mobility altogether, we can add sustainability-related content to a school’s curriculum, or we can rethink the way a school is designed, organised, and embedded in the community with sustainability in mind. The choice between optimization of what is and transitioning towards what can be

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requires an understanding of ‘the nature of the change challenge’ of the kind of problems we are dealing with here, whether they be simple, complex, or wicked (Fox and Gibson, 2013). Does it require fine-tuning and optimization, or does it require a more radical response at the level of values and principles where we might enter unknown terrain? The last aspect of transformative capacity has to do with one’s ability to transgress. Much literature focusing on sustainability competence puts an emphasis on the role of the individual and is based on the usually flawed assumption of the capable citizen (all equal before the law) and a level playing field between atomic individuals. But individuals are not atomic, although they are often atomised by the practices and procedures of institutions and the ideology of democratic and consumer choice, while their behaviour is heavily circumscribed by structures, institutions, and practices over which they have little influence or control. Hence, people’s ability to disrupt or transgress hegemonic routines and vested powers and interest that are not serving the well-being of people and planet is an essential part of sustainability-oriented learning. Barry (2005) views sustainability citizenship as a form of resistance citizenship existing within, and as a corrective to, unsustainable development. Unfortunately, there is a tendency in sustainability-oriented learning and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to avoid the political dimension. In responding to climate change, for instance, there is much talk about adaptation and resilience, but such talk might easily distract us from looking at the root causes and considering climate change as a manifestation of global systemic dysfunction. So, in addition to strengthening people’s capacity to adapt to change and to become resilient in times of change, strengthening their capacity to disrupt and resist forces and structures that normalise unsustainability and catastrophe ( Jickling, 2013) seems equally important. This is where transformation and transgression go hand in hand. Lotz-Sisitka et al. (2015) argue that transgressive learning is needed to challenge and disrupt hegemonic structures and routines that over time have, willingly or unwillingly, become normalised and have become hard to change. Transgressive learning is about exposing marginalisation, exploitation, dehumanization, and other forms of systemic unsustainability, and disrupting the powers and structures that work towards maintaining unsustainability. Transgressive learning is relatively new, and we need to think more about what it is, how it works, and how learning spaces can be designed and supported that are conducive to facilitating transgression and disruption. Figure 5.2 summarises the four distinguished but inevitably interrelated spheres of sustainability-oriented learning as an emergent property of an ecology of learning seeking to contribute to a more sustainable world (see also Figure 5.1).

Whole school approaches to sustainability Can we create ecologies of learning in our schools? What might such schools look like? Or, perhaps the better question is: How can schools become a part of an ecology of learning that invites diversity, boundary crossing, agency, and

Sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning 73

FIGURE 5.2 

Four spheres of sustainability learning.

the kind of transgression and transformation that can lead to structures, communities, and individuals that breathe sustainability? Here I must recognise some earlier work that already conceptualised and, albeit sporadically, realised such schools over 30 years ago. In 1988, John Miller wrote The Holistic Curriculum, and a year afterwards, Stephen Greig, Greg Pike, and David Selby (1989) wrote Greenprints for Changing Schools. Ten years later in 1999, Fritjof Capra wrote his classic book Ecoliteracy: The Challenge of Education in the Next Century, upon which the Center of Ecoliteracy built much of its work in schools in the United States (see, for instance, Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability, which appeared again 10 years later [Stone and Center for Ecoliteracy, 2009]). Let me also refer to the work of Stephen Sterling, particularly to the guide that he made for World Wildlife Fund Scotland: Linking thinking: New Perspectives on Thinking and Learning for Sustainability (Sterling, 2004) and, finally, to Ken Webster’s Changing the Story: Cradle-to-Cradle Thinking as a Compelling Framework for ESD (Webster, 2007). All these works, and, indeed, there are others, refer to the importance of education being ‘whole, organic and systemic’ and imply what might be called a whole school approach (WSA) to sustainability (Shallcross et al., 2006). A WSA advocates education that is relevant in terms of connecting with the life-world, the community, and the issues that matter; responsive in terms of being capable of dealing with continuous change, emergence, and surprise; responsible in terms of being aware of the values individuals, schools, and structures amplify, ignore, or silence; reimaginative in terms of engaging learners in imagining and creating viable and energizing alternative futures; relational in terms of establishing deeper connections with people, nonhumans, matter/materials, and places;

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and finally, reflexive in that a healthy community is a learning community, which also implies that sustainability is a continuous search rather than a destination. Today, there are schools—both primary and secondary—in different parts of the world that are rethinking their school profile and identity using health, global citizenship, and sustainability as catalysts for innovation and a new normative direction that often, but not always, counters neoliberal tendencies towards accountability, efficiency, and continuous growth. Sometimes they do so under the flag of ‘eco-schools’, and sometimes they use other labels, such as a health-promoting school, a democratic school, or a green school. Although there are different shades of green, those that seek to stress a WSA try simultaneously to improve and renew curricula, pedagogy, professional development, school-community relations, and school operations, much in line of the six R’s outlined in the previous paragraph. Such schools often integrate emerging concepts such as cradle-to-cradle, closed-cycle design, sharing economy, perma-culture, and biomimicry in their curriculum. They try to redesign school grounds and the interior of the buildings, often using democratic processes, to become greener, to invite interaction and ‘relationality’, and to become a kind of living learning ‘laboratory’ for democracy, health, and sustainability. The grounds of a green school can become a source of healthy—school-grown—food, a learning space for biology, mathematics, arts and humanities, etc. as well as a more inviting space to meet and connect with each other and the community of which a school is a part. These schools try to walk the talk, by using alternative energy sources such as solar energy and wind to power the school and by having healthier and more responsible food in the canteen or for school lunch, reducing packaging, and composting food waste to be used in the school garden, and so on. They also work more closely with parents, but also local businesses, such as garden centres, restaurants, and bike repair shops. The idea is that school becomes a more pleasant, relevant, and connected place that breathes sustainability. These kinds of ‘whole schools for the whole human being’ help to realise many policy goals that local governments seek to achieve by promoting health, improving education, countering climate change, increasing biodiversity, creating sustainable communities, and so on. These schools also assess the capacities that staff members need in order to support the kind of learning and learning environment that are advocated, sometimes linking up with conventional teacher training and in-service training facilities and sometimes organising their own. Creating a WSA also requires that there is an element of (self ) organisation, (distributed) leadership, coordination, and synergy to make sure that the whole (curriculum, community engagement, professional development, environmental management, and pedagogy) is more than the sum of its parts. Figure 5.3 from UNESCO’s 2016 Global Education Monitor Report, entitled Education for People and Planet: Creating Sustainable Futures for All, illustrates a WSA and the ecology of learning it can create.

Sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning 75

An ecology of learning created by a whole school approach to sustainability. FIGURE 5.3 

Source: UNESCO (2016), printed with permission.

Conclusions This chapter has introduced sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning as a generative concept for reorienting education, learning, and capacity building in ways that will counter current trends towards planetary destruction and mass extinction while simultaneously engaging people in a hopeful and energizing process that will lead to more sustainable futures. The WSA was introduced as a concrete manifestation of this concept in practice. Underneath is an underlying emancipatory pedagogy that is relational (allowing for caring for and connecting with people, places, and other species), critical (allowing for critique and questioning), actional (allowing for agency and creating change), ethical (opening up spaces for ethical considerations and moral dilemmas), and political (confrontational, transgressive, and disruptive of routines, systems, and structures when deemed appropriate). Sustainability can be seen as an emergent property of an ecology of learning that is a reflexive, purposeful mix of actors, perspectives, forms of learning, connections, and support mechanisms, driven by an ethical concern for the well-being of people and the planet both now and in the future. Such learning goes well beyond learning for knowing or even doing because it requires change and transformation and calls for a recalibration of the self in light of encounters with everyday existential questions about one’s own being and becoming.

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There is a whole range of hopeful and generative practices emerging around the world from student-led transformations in higher education, to citizen-led transformation of urban green spaces, to sustainability-minded activist scientists engaging in transformation of energy, water, and food systems, to school communities trying to green their schools and curricula in meaningful ways, to circular economists (concerned with exploring possibilities for the reuse and circulation of goods) who are beginning to challenge some of the fundamentals that underlie capitalism. Many of these practices are transgressive in that they go against forces and normalised routines and systems that push a future predetermined and prescribed by others that, from a sustainability point of view, is highly problematic. By inviting diversity and dissonance and using multiple ways of knowing and being in the world, sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning can play an important role in co-creating the knowledge and wisdom needed to live more lightly, meaningfully, and equitably and healthier on the Earth, while being mindful of the intrinsic values of all that is around us.

References Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 132–169. Barry, J. 2005. Resistance is Fertile: From Environmental to Sustainability Citizenship. In A. Dobson and D. Bell (Eds.) Environmental Citizenship: Getting from Here to There. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 21–48 Bateson, N. (2016). Small arcs of larger circles: Framing through other patterns. Charmouth, United Kingdom: Triarchy Press. Bateson, G. (1980). Mind and nature: A necessary unity. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Bateson, N. (2017, May 28). Warm data [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://norabateson. wordpress.com/2017/05/28/warm-data/ Berlyne, D. E. (1965). Curiosity and education. In J. D. Krumbolts (Ed.), Learning and the educational process. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally & Co. Biesta, G. J. J. (2015, March). What really matters in education. Public lecture held VIA University College. Retrieved from www.slideshare.net/orlanielsen/gert-biesta-whatreally-matters-in-education Capra, F. (1999). Ecoliteracy: The challenge for education in the next century. Liverpool, CA: Schumacher Series. Chaves, M., & Wals, A. E. J. (2018). The nature of transformative learning for social-ecological sustainability. In M. E. Krasny (Ed.), Grassroots to global: Broader impacts of civic ecology (pp. 105–123). London, United Kingdom: Cornell University Press. de Waal, F. (2009). The age of empathy: Nature’s lessons for a kinder society. New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Fox, M., & Gibson, R. (2013). Simple, complex and wicked problems: A typology. Retrieved from www.mofox.com Greig, S., Pike, G., & Selby, D. (1989). Greenprints for changing schools. London, United Kingdom: WWF/Kogan Page. Hicks, D., & Holden, C. (2007). Remembering the future: What do children think? Environmental Education Research, 13, 501–512.

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Jickling, B. (2013). Normalizing catastrophe:An educational response. Environmental Education Research, 19(2), 161–176. doi: 10.1080/13504622.2012.721114 Kagawa, F., & Selby, D. (Eds.). (2010). Education and climate change: Living and learning in interesting times. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. Kelsey, E. (Ed.). (2014). Beyond doom and gloom: An exploration through letters. RCC Perspectives, 6. Retrieved from http://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/ files/2014_i6_web_v2.pdf Lotz-Sisitka, H., Wals, A. E. J., Kronlid, D., & McGarry, D. (2015). Transformative, transgressive social learning: Rethinking higher education pedagogy in times of systemic global dysfunction. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 16, 73–80. McGarry, D. (n.d.). The Institute of Uncanny Justness. Retrieved from www. uncannyjustness.org Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Miller, J. (1988). The holistic curriculum. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: OISE Press. Noddings, N. (2005). The challenge to care in schools (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California Press. Orr, D. (1994). Earth in mind: On education, environment, and the human prospect. New York, NY: Island Press. Pearson, K. R., Backman, M., Grenni, S., Moriggi, A., Pisters, S., & Vrieze de, A. (2018). Arts-based methods for transformative engagement: A toolkit. Wageningen, The Netherlands: SUSPLACE. https://doi.org/10.18174/441523 Peters, S., & Wals, A. E. J. (2013). Learning and knowing in pursuit of sustainability: Concepts and tools for trans-disciplinary environmental research. In M. Krasny & J. Dillon (Eds.), Trading zones in environmental education: Creating trans-disciplinary dialogue (pp. 79–104). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Shallcross, T., Robinson, J., Pace, P., & Wals, A. E. J. (2006). Creating sustainable environments in our schools. Stoke on Trent, United Kingdom: Trentham Publishers. Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: Learning as network-creation. American Society for Professional Development. Retrieved from www.astd.org/LC/2005/1105_seimens.htm Sol, J., Beers, P. J., & Wals, A. E. J. (2013). Social learning in regional innovation networks: Trust, commitment and reframing as emergent properties of interaction. Journal of Cleaner Production, 49(8), 35–43. Sterling, S. (2004). Linkingthinking: New perspectives on thinking and learning for sustainability. Edinburgh, United Kingdom: WWF/Scotland. Stone, M., & Center for Ecoliteracy. (2009). Smart by nature: Schooling for sustainability. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media. Tucci, J., Mitchell, J., & Goddard, C. (2007). Children’s fears, hopes and heroes: Modern childhood in Australia. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Childhood Foundation. UNESCO. (2016). Education for people and planet: Creating sustainable futures for all. 2016 Global Education Monitor Report. Paris, France: UNESCO. United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on September 25, 2015. New York, NY: United Nations. Wahl, D. C. (2016). Designing Regenerative Cultures. Axminster: Triarchy Press. Wals, A. E. J. (2010). Message in a bottle: Learning our way out of unsustainability. Inaugural address held upon accepting a Professorship and UNESCO Chair in Social Learning and Sustainable Development held May 27, 2010.Wageningen,The Netherlands:Wageningen University.

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Wals, A. E. J., & Heymann, F. V. (2004). Learning on the edge: Exploring the change potential of conflict in social learning for sustainable living. In A. Wenden (Ed.), Educating for a culture of social and ecological peace (pp. 123–145). New York, NY: SUNY Press. Wals, A. E. J., & Peters, M. A. (2017). Flowers of resistance: Citizen science, ecological democracy and the transgressive education paradigm. In A. König & J. Ravetz (Eds.), Sustainability science: Key issues. London, United Kingdom: Earthscan/Routledge. Wals, A. E. J., & Schwarzin, L. (2012). Fostering organizational sustainability through dialogical interaction. The Learning Organization, 19(1), 11–27. Webster, K. (2007). Changing the story: Cradle-to-cradle thinking as a compelling framework for ESD in a globalised world. Retrieved from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijisde/ v2y2007i3-4p282-298.html Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225–246.

PART 2

Advancing ecologies for learning and practice in higher education

6 ECOLOGIES FOR LEARNING AND PRACTICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION ECOSYSTEMS Norman J. Jackson

Introduction All organisms inhabit an ecosystem—the complex set of interactions among the residents, resources, and habitats of an area for the purpose of living (Tansley, 1935). Each organism within an ecosystem develops a unique ecology for living and reproduction. However, human organisms differ from other organisms in the extent to which we make our own ecosystems and develop our own ecologies not simply to sustain ourselves, but to make our lives more interesting and meaningful. Ecosystems are complex adaptive systems (Levin, 1998). They have many parts and many connections between the parts and are adaptive because their feedback structure enables them to change in ways that sustain the ecosystem. Biological systems have a hierarchy of organizational levels that extend from molecules and cells to individual organisms, populations, and whole ecosystems. Any ecosystem is characterized by ‘flows’ of nutrients and energy, of materials, and of information. Such flows provide the interconnections between parts and transform the community from a random collection of species into an integrated whole, an ecosystem in which biotic and abiotic parts are interrelated (Levin, 1998, p. 433). In this way, macroscopic system-level properties emerge from interactions among components (Levin, 1998, p. 431). These concepts can be applied to a human social organisation such as a higher education system. Such a specialised eco-social system is complex because it contains many people, many parts, and many interactions between the people and the parts. It is adaptive because information flowing from activity at all levels of the system enables it to respond, develop, and accomplish the things the people and entities in it set out to achieve. A higher education ecosystem comprises different levels of organisation extending from individual actors fulfilling different

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roles and pursuing different goals (learners, teachers, administrators, support workers, leaders, and managers), through organised teams and networks of people, departments, schools, faculties, whole institutions, and other organisations. In this chapter, I share my perspectives on the idea of higher education ecosystems and offer a model to explain the nature of the ecologies of learning and practice created by participants within such specialised eco-social systems.

Higher education ecosystems A higher education ecosystem is an essential element of a country’s infrastructure for sustaining and continuing to develop a healthy society, culture, and economy. Higher education systems are implicated in many of a society’s eco-social systems. Barnett (2017) identified seven of these, namely knowledge, social institutions (including the political sphere), the natural environment, economy, culture, learning, and persons, to which we might add cities as a local eco-social system within which many universities are located (see Chapter 13). The society provides the social, economic, historical, cultural, and political contexts within which all activities are undertaken. It includes the legal framework within which higher education institutions operate and government policies and strategies for promoting and supporting citizens’ rights to learn. The higher education ecosystem comprises public and private institutions and organisations, agencies, and other infrastructures and resources (including knowledgeable and skilled practitioners and administrators) that support, deliver, and regulate the educational policies and practices in line with the expectations of society. The higher education ecosystem contains representative bodies, agencies that fund teaching and research, agencies for quality assurance and enhancement, organisations that are independent of government, professional and regulatory bodies that maintain standards in the professions that accredit programmes, institutional accrediting agencies, independent agents and brokers, and networks and associations that connect people across institutional and disciplinary boundaries. Institutional ecosystems are connected to the societal ecosystem in many ways and are subject to the influences of many different agents, such as employers, professional and regulatory bodies, and higher education agencies for quality assurance and enhancement. Competition is a necessary and vital force in a healthy eco-social system where reputations matter and innovation can lead to gaining competitive advantage. Collaboration (at least in higher education in the United Kingdom) is also an essential condition in enabling individuals, institutions, and the system as a whole to learn, adapt, and flourish. Collegiality (willingness to cooperate) is an important part of the culture of a higher education ecosystem. This element facilitates the sharing of ideas and practices between institutions and disciplinary-based departments and encourages innovation, as individuals are exposed to, and influenced by, new ideas and practices. Information and ideas generated from activities inside and outside the ecosystem flow through it and are the

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catalysts for change. But there are many boundaries in a higher education ecosystem that inhibit the flow of information and adaptation, so there is a need for brokers to facilitate interaction, communication, and collaboration across and between the levels of the ecosystem ( Jackson, 2003). A nation’s higher education ecosystem is open to influences from the wider world containing other higher education ecosystems and a multitude of educational institutions (organisational ecosystems) and other relevant organisations. At the policy level, a higher education ecosystem may appropriate and adapt policies from other higher education ecosystems, whereas, at the institutional level, higher education institutions may form alliances with other institutions. Developments at the global scale, such as technological developments involving the internet and communications technologies, have an impact on all levels of a higher education ecosystem and directly on individuals within it. There are no rigid boundaries. Rather, there are only domains of organisation and enterprise that are able to interact.

Higher education institutional ecosystems Higher education institutions are self-contained organisational ecosystems operating within a national tertiary education ecosystem and a broader educational ecosystem containing preschool, primary, and secondary provisions. Universities and colleges of higher education are specialised eco-social systems dedicated to their two main functions: (1) research and the sharing of new knowledge and (2) education—the facilitation of learning and the development of people. Traditionally, these functions are delivered through an organisational framework that is based on disciplines, with ‘discipline’ understood by Berger (1970, p. 25) as ‘a specific body of teachable knowledge with its own background of education, training, procedures, methods and content areas’. This definition sees discipline as a hybrid, being both a subject that can be taught and a technical term for the organisation of learning and the systematic production of new knowledge. Although institutional ecosystems share many characteristics, each is unique in terms of the population of its individuals with their particular disciplinary knowledge, expertise, and experience, and therefore unique capacities to pursue their core functions and respond to changes in the environment. It is worth emphasising that disciplines form the dominant organisational feature of most institutional eco-social systems, while recognising that some institutions do create structures and policies to encourage interdisciplinarity (Daniels et al., 2007). Disciplines are the level at which information and knowledge are contextualised, given meaning, developed, and disseminated. They are also the level at which practice is normalised and developed and shared through networks and events that are both national and global. Ellis and Goodyear (2010) offer a narrative for viewing a university as a large complex ecosystem. In their view, such an ecosystem involves all the

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relationships and interactions of the inhabitants—students, teachers, researchers, support and administrative staff, managers, and leaders—and their connections with employers and society more generally and the resources, physical spaces, and virtual environments, processes, and practices that are played out day to day. A university ecosystem includes its culture, which Seel (2000, p. 2) suggests, ‘is the emergent result of the continuing negotiations about values, meanings and proprieties between the members of that organisation and with its environment. [Accordingly], culture is the result of all the daily conversations and negotiations between the members of an organisation about the way we do [or would like to do] things here’. A higher education institutional ecosystem is really a constellation of organisational ecosystems—the departmental building blocks each with its own management and administration structures, purposes, practices, and cultures. Consequently, there are many fault lines that inhibit communication and interaction, thus necessitating agents whose role is to facilitate communication, interaction, decision making, and action. For example, individuals in central services such as student support, staff and educational development, and e-learning are important boundary-spanning agents. Emergence is a fundamental property of an ecosystem, and higher education ecosystems (both national and institutional) are continually re-forming: the emergent pattern is shaped by history and tradition and influenced by powerful social/cultural, political, economic, and technological forces within the ecosystem and the world beyond. These forces are mediated by the passions, interests, creativity, and pragmatic responses of individual practitioners, networks, and agents within the ecosystems. Organizational ecosystems should be mostly understood as emergent phenomena that result from a tenuous balance between actor agency and social structure, rather than from purposeful engineering. (Mars, Bronstein, and Lusch, 2014, p. 274) Periodically, leaders and key influencers in an institutional ecosystem (or a whole higher education ecosystem) decide to change the system, and new strategies and policies are developed to achieve the change (see Chapter 7). But creating systemic change in an ecosystem can be a complex business because people and groups respond to top-down strategic imperatives in their individualistic ways and the personalities and motivations of individual actors are played out ( Jackson, 2014). It is from within this dynamic that new ideas, beliefs, and patterns of behaviour and practice emerge within an institutional ecosystem and across a whole higher education ecosystem. From this brief description of a higher education ecosystem in continual formation, we can create a framework to represent its key features and dynamics (Figure 6.1). Although not as complex as a city, a university eco-social system can be likened to a city in terms of its ecological vitality and complexity. In Chapter 13,

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programmes modules

other independent organisations agents & brokers in the HE system

ALL OTHER EDUCATION PROVIDERS

OTHER ECOSYSTEMS PROFESSIONAL & STATUTORY BODIES

ECOLOGIES OF TEACHING & LEARNING PRACTICES sites for interaction/learning created by teachers, learners and others who support student learning

EMPLOYERS

leadership, management, governance & cultures, values accommodation and other physical and virtual infrastructure, services to support teachers and learners, and administrators regulatory frameworks, policies, tools, resources for learning anything that impacts on teaching, learning & students’ experiences

dedicated infrastructures and resources to support HE system

Global leaders and influencers of educational thinking and practice Research & reports of influential bodies

INSTITUTIONAL ECOSYSTEM CONTAINING A CONSTELLATION OF DEPARTMENTAL ECOSYSTEMS

networks of HE practitioners & educators

EU DIRECTIVES & INITIATIVES

HE agencies

OTHER HE ECOSYSTEMS & INSTITUTIONS

other HE institutions

GLOBAL NETWORKS & ALLIANCES

EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM HIGHER EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM

GOVERNMENT

GLOBAL SOCIETY social/cultural/political/technological/economic influences NATIONAL SOCIETY social/cultural/political/technological/economic influences

GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM OF INFINITE POSSIBILITIES FOR LEARNING

HOME, FRIENDS, FAMILY, LIFE OUTSIDE THE INSTITUTION

global community of educators

FIGURE 6.1 

Higher education ecosystems.

Explanation: Students and teachers inhabit an institutional ecosystem containing multiple departmental ecosystems with their own cultures and specialised resources. Institutional ecosystems sit within a higher education ecosystem and a larger national educational ecosystem hosted by society. These are connected to global society containing many higher education ecosystems. Abbreviations: EU, European Union; HE, higher education; OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Facer and colleagues provide helpful interpretations of the learning and practice dynamics of a city that might be also applied to a university ecosystem: [K]ey actors engage in an intentional interweaving of people and resources precisely to create moments of encounter and interdependence … knitting, weaving, threading together the trajectories of inhabitants, making and remaking niches within the wider ecosystem, which the … inhabitants in turn come to make and remake.

Ecologies for learning and practice within a university eco-social system A university eco-social system is constituted to enable it to fulfil primary educational purposes. Within such an ecosystem, individuals performing many different specialised roles create their own ecologies of practice within which their learning is embedded. Together, the community as a whole co-creates an environment that is conducive to the types of activities and interactions that facilitate students’

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learning and development according to the cultural traditions, pedagogical beliefs, and practices of the teachers and others who support students’ learning. Such an environment contains physical spaces such as classrooms, lecture theatres, laboratories, computer rooms, and specialist rooms, such as workshops, dance studios, and music rehearsal rooms. We must also include the virtual spaces the institution has created to enable people to interact and learn. There are also libraries and learning resource centres and informal social spaces such as cafes, bars, and even outside public spaces where people meet and talk. But these spaces are just one part of a complex socio-material environment that includes tools and other materials necessary for learning, rules that govern behaviour and practice (policies, procedures, regulations, and administrative frameworks), and culture (the unspoken rules and the ways in which things are done). Together, these elements create an environment within which teachers teach and continually develop their practices and learners learn and develop themselves. A university influences but does not control the learning ecologies of its learners and its educational practitioners.

Framework for understanding ecologies of learning and practice The framework illustrated in Figure 6.2 relates a whole thinking, feeling, acting, caring person to their contexts, needs, desires, and purposes, and what they are trying to achieve in the particular situations in which they are acting and learning. When people encounter a new challenge or opportunity, they attempt to comprehend the situation and act in appropriate ways. Effectively, they create an ecology that enables them to perceive and interact with their environment in 3 RESOURCES information, knowledge, people, tools, technologies 4 SPACES & other artefacts (anything that can be used) physical, social, virtual, intellectual, psychological, liminal 2 AFFORDANCES Spaces for: conversation & discussion, for exploring, possibilities that can be inquiring & investigating, for imagining & reflecting, WHOLE PERSON for making, for play, for thinking critically, analyzing & evaluating for synthesis and integrative thinking and much more

PAST 5 PLACES

some things can only be learned in a particular place. Places enable access to resources, affordances, spaces and relationships. Places may require, inspire and facilitate making or other activities.

6 RELATIONSHIPS

perceived or imagined for thinking and action

with their mind and body, purposes and motivations, sensing, perceiving, feeling, imagining, relating to, interacting with, interpreting & making sense of their environment & emerging situations

with people, communities, places, ideas, objects, work, hobbies, problems, anything!

ENVIRONMENT

FUTURE? 1 CONTEXTS

situations, circumstances, culture, ourselves familiar or unfamiliar, simplecomplicated-complex or chaotic

7 PROCESSES/ACTIVITIES/EXPERIENCES e.g., study, work, making, research, inquiry, problem solving and much more....

Learning and practice ecology (adapted from Jackson, 2016, and Chapter 12, this volume). The labels (1–7) explain the key dimensions of the ecology.

FIGURE 6.2 

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order to accomplish the things that matter to them, and learning and achievement emerge from this milieu. In this way, the person and his or her environment and activities are not only connected but unified. Every organism has an environment: the organism shapes its environment and environment shapes the organism. So it helps to think of an indivisible totality of ‘organism plus environment’ - best seen as an ongoing process of growth and development. (Ingold, 2000, p. 20) A learning ecology is also an ecology of practice in which the primary purpose is learning. The same framework can be used to characterise any complex practice where learning is intended to achieve something significant (see Chapter 12 for an example). Ecologies for learning and practice have temporal as well as spatial dimensions; they enable the makers to connect and integrate different spaces, resources, tools, situations, relationships, activities, and themselves in ways that they find meaningful and effect various transformations (personal, material, and virtual). They enable makers to connect and integrate their past, present, and future, and connect thoughts and actions experienced in a moment and organise them into more significant experiences of thinking and action. They are the means by which the makers weave their moments into the fabric of a meaningful life, a life they feel is worth living. The components of an ecology for learning, summarised in Figure 6.2, are woven together by the maker in a part deliberate, part opportunistic act of trying to achieve something and learn in the process. They do not stand in isolation: they can and do connect and interfere and become incorporated into other learning ecologies. The maker of a complex ecology for learning and practice is able to ‘knit, weave and thread together’ the learning and practice lives of others (see Chapter 13). An ecology for learning and practice enables the maker to think and act in an ecological (connected, relational, and integrated) way, to perceive (observe, sense, and comprehend the information flows), to imagine (conceptualise and modify what has been observed in order to create possible meanings and new interpretations), to reason (analyse and critically evaluate observations and make judgements), and to reflect on what has been experienced to make better sense of it and learn from the experience.

Ecologies of pedagogical practices Teachers create ecologies of practice to enable students to learn. Figure 6.3 uses the generic learning ecology framework (Figure 6.2) to represent a teacher’s ecology of practice. The university provides the organisational ecosystem within which teachers create ecologies for learning. A traditional course or programme taught face to face is designed, organised, and implemented by one or more academic teachers

88  Norman J. Jackson 3 RESOURCES

information, knowledge, (including tacit and embodied) materials, tools and other artefacts used in making and new artefacts that are made

4 SPACES

physical, social, intellectual, psychological, liminal, educational, instructional, facilitative, e.g., for conversation & discussion, exploring, inquiring, investigating & experimenting, making & playing, writing, imagining, experiencing, reflecting & sense making, synthesis and integrative thinking

PASTS 5 PLACES

some things can only be learned in a particular place. Places enable access to resources, affordances, spaces and relationships. Places encourage certain sorts of doing. They may require, inspire and facilitate making, performing, experimenting or other activities.

TEACHER

possibilities for action in educational situations and in the using and making of artefacts

with their mind and body, purposes and motivations, sensing, perceiving, feeling, caring, imagining, relating to, interacting with, learners in an environment they share through particular pedagogical practices

6 RELATIONSHIPS

LEARNERS & ENVIRONMENT

between teacher & learners, learners & learners learners & mentors or supervisors with ideas/concepts, materials, objects, tools, places, spaces and processes

2 AFFORDANCES

FUTURES 1 CONTEXTS

educational/pedagogical/ institutional, social/cultural, personal

7 PROCESS/ACTIVITY/EXPERIENCE pedagogical means through which learners are engaged with the teacher and their environment e.g., lecturing, discussing, tutoring, modelling, coaching, mentoring, supervision, guided participation, inquiry, projects, fieldwork and more

FIGURE 6.3  An ecology of teaching practice to enable students to learn. The labels (1–7) explain key dimensions of the ecology.

who have both disciplinary and pedagogical expertise, within an institutional sociocultural environment that aids learning. There is a structure (timetable/ lecture schedule/credit) and a procedural framework (rules and regulations) within which learning takes place, and there are quality assurance mechanisms. There are functional spaces to facilitate teaching and learning, some of which are specialised. Programmes are organised into units or modules with explicit objectives, content, resources, and processes that engage learners in activities through which they learn, and some of their learning is assessed using methods determined by teachers. Their collective interactions over time create a culture within which learning, scholarship, and the discovery of new knowledge are developed, shared, valued, and rewarded. Affordances for learning, which we see as opportunities, are everywhere. They are contained in the course, programme, or module content; in the activities that teachers organise to engage learners; in the physical and virtual spaces that support particular activities (both academic and social); and in the intellectual spaces that the pedagogical activities promote. Opportunities for learning are found in the resources including books, journals, computers, software, and other tools and mediating artefacts that are used, and in the teaching and learning processes and practices that are used to engage learners and encourage them to form relationships for learning with these resources. Opportunities for learning are also found in the support and advisory services the university provides and in the relationships and interactions between all the inhabitants of the

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The global ecosystem of infinite possibilities for learning including resources & interactions available through the internet

Work-related curriculum Work placement related to area of study or integration theory & practice, e.g., health and social care programmes

Academic curriculum

UNIVERSITY ECOSYSTEM

Study programme/ modules

Co-curriculum

May include study abroad, service learning

Organised learning outside formal curriculum

Extra-curriculum Part-time work and internships Running own business Volunteering & social enterprise Mentoring

Managing own life Caring for others Participating in sport Travel Creative activity

Study abroad Student representation & societies AND MUCH MORE!!!

FIGURE 6.4  A lifewide curriculum situated within the global ecosystem of infinite possibilities for learning, developing, and achieving (adapted from Jackson, 2011b).

eco-social system and the culture that emerges from all the daily conversations and interactions. Opportunities for learning are also found outside the educational environment of a university. This ecosystem of infinite possibilities for learning extends students’ potential for learning and development well beyond the university ecosystem (Figure 6.4). In the course of studying how young people developed their technological fluency, Barron (2006) demonstrated that learners create their own ecologies for learning that embrace many different activities in many different places, circumstances, and contexts. Her research showed that (1) individuals are simultaneously involved in many settings, their learning and achieving being contained within their lifewide experiences; (2) individuals create the contexts for learning for themselves within and across settings; (3) the boundaries among settings can be permeable; and (4) interest-driven activities can span contextual boundaries and be self-sustaining given adequate time, freedom, and resources (Barron, 2006, pp. 199–201). This way of thinking about learning led to the concepts of lifewide learning and lifewide education (Banks et al., 2007; Jackson, 2011a; Barnett, 2011). To fully recognise the opportunities for learners to create their own ecologies for learning, developing, and achieving, we need to adopt the idea of a lifewide curriculum ( Jackson, 2011b and Figure 6.4). This is the only concept of curriculum that embraces learners’ ecosystem of infinite possibilities for learning and developing themselves and achieving things that they value.

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Influence of pedagogical practices on the ecologies within which students learn Richardson (2002) proposed a model for a learning ecology in an institutional instructional environment, based on a 2×2 matrix shown in Figure 6.5. The x-axis defines the nature of delivery (either content focused [left] or process/ activity focused [right]), whereas the y-axis defines who controlled the learning (either teacher or machine [bottom] or learner [top]). Richardson used this framework to show how different pedagogical practices occupied different conceptual spaces. Using this framework, we can infer that pedagogical practices that encourage and support learner self-navigation (the upper half of Figure 6.5) will provide the greatest opportunities for learners to create and implement their own ecologies for learning. From a learning ecology perspective, we might represent the pedagogical possibilities along a continuum. At one end of the pedagogical continuum, the teacher controls all or most of the aspects for learning (goals, knowledge and skill content, activities, resources and technologies, and what counts as learning and achievement). At the other end, learners create their own ecologies for learning with minimal instruction and support. Between these two situations, there are many variations in which learners take some responsibility for designing and implementing a learning project. A second conceptual framework is provided in Figure 6.6 to help visualise ways in which learners might create and implement their own ecologies for learning within a lifewide concept of curriculum. The 2×2 matrix is defined by (1) contexts for learning, namely whether the main environmental context for learning is within or outside the institution; and (2) whether the learner or the institution or other agent determines the what, why, how, where, and when of learning. The conceptual spaces on the left of Figure 6.6 are pedagogical spaces determined by the teacher within an institutional environment, whereas the spaces

FIGURE 6.5 

Holistic learning environment.

Source: Richardson (2002, p. 49).

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LEARNING

A Completely determined by teachers

D Completely determined by learner

CONTEXT LEARNING

‘Institution’ programme, module, co-curriculum

B Partly to significantly determined by learner(s)

ECOLOGY

Determined by learner

C Partly to significantly determined by learner(s)

‘World Outside Institution’ workplace, community, field, anywhere, extra-curriculum

Determined by institution/teacher or other entity, e.g., work placement or volunteering organisation FIGURE 6.6  Tool for evaluating the opportunities for higher education learners to create or co-create their own ecologies for learning in a lifewide curriculum.

Source: Jackson (2014, 2016).

Explanation: The ‘Learning Ecology’ axis contains such things as the goals and purposes, intended learning, knowledge and skill content, process, resources including tools and technologies, spaces, relationships, and what counts as learning.

on the right-hand side are more likely to be heutagogical (self-determined by the learner) or pedagogically influenced by practitioners and other actors in realworld settings. The different spaces depicted in Figure 6.6 have different levels of opportunity for learners to create their own ecologies for learning. Teaching that is lecture based (zone A in Figure 6.6) offers little opportunity for learners to create their own ecologies for learning. Teaching that encourages learners to be actively involved in constructing their own knowledge and perspectives (zone B in Figure 6.6) provides more opportunities for learners, either individually or cooperatively, to develop their own learning ecologies. Problemand inquiry-based learning, artistic exploration and scientific investigation, and independent project and practical work are just a few of the pedagogical strategies used to encourage learners to determine aspects of their ecologies for learning. Chapter 4 of this book, by Savin-Baden, considers this type of pedagogical space as the means through which learners ‘learn how to live in the liminal’, whereas in Chapter 9, Barab and colleagues show how this type of pedagogical space can be used to stimulate the intrinsic desire to create value, which is essential for a self-motivated learning ecology. Sometimes a teacher’s pedagogical strategies involve learners working outside their institutional environment in the C or D domains of Figure 6.6, for example, in independent fieldwork or community projects. But opportunities for supervised work placements or voluntary work create important opportunities for learners to engage in social learning and develop their ecological

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thinking and skills in real settings. In such applied settings, novice practitioners are guided by more experienced and expert practitioners, as they co-participate in work-relevant tasks and projects through which they create their own ecologies for learning and practice. Baker (1999) described this form of practice as ‘guided participation’. To become an effective practitioner in a disciplinary or professional field, learners must be able to create and apply their own ecologies for learning and practice. They must follow and experience a trajectory that takes them from the cognitive apprenticeship domain on the left of Figure 6.6 to the applied apprenticeship and independent practice domains on the right of this figure (see Chapter 12). The idea of ecotones (see Chapter 8) provides yet another perspective on these pedagogical spaces where learners have the freedom to create their own ecologies for learning. These are zones at the boundaries between ecosystems that are rich in possibility for learning and transformation. Within the formal learning environment, the availability of an ecotone is dependent on the pedagogical practices of the teacher and the design of programmes, but in the wider world, learners can search for, utilise, and create their own ecotonic environments where they can explore, experiment, create, and become different. Perhaps the blending of academic and real-world environments creates the opportunities for ecotones that are necessary for the sorts of personally relevant and meaningful projects that enable learners to transform themselves—an idea that is well illustrated in the narrative below.

A student’s ecologies for learning and practice Students’ interests, needs, and ambitions are not limited by their course or the pedagogical practices to which they are subjected. Engaged, proactive students will seek out opportunities in their whole environment, especially when developmental opportunities within their course are limited. The abstract idea of an ecology for learning is brought to life when learners share their narratives of their own experiences of learning in becoming the sort of persons they want to be. Here, an archaeology student, Michael, in his final year describes his attempts to become the archaeologist he wanted to be, which took him outside the limitations of his university ecosystem (abbreviated from Jackson, 2016, pp. 93–98). [In going to university] I wanted to become an archaeologist and that ambition caused me to get involved in many things outside my course that I thought would help me become an archaeologist. The most obvious process I engaged with to learn archaeology was the timetabled and structured course. This involved the reading of set course material much of it accessed through on-line journals and participation in lectures. This structure that was designed and taught by my teachers allowed me to follow a very clear process of learning, helping me to fully understand what information I had to know within the course. My degree course formed the backbone to my learning

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about archaeology. It provided me with contacts with people who were also interested in my subject and enabled me to develop a mind-set that encouraged me to engage with archaeology in many different ways. The one experience in my course where I feel I had to create my own learning process was my final year dissertation which required me to create a project around something I found interesting and challenging. I had taken a module in my second year which involved a technique called ZooMS for analysing collagen in animal bones to identify animal genus. The academic responsible for developing the technique wanted someone to try the technique on erasure rubbings from bones. I thought this was interesting so I wrote my proposal and created a process that involved me sourcing samples, experimenting using different rubbing and collagen extraction techniques, analysing the collagen using a Mass Spectrometer, then processing the data and writing up the results. Although the process for achieving my goal was not particularly smooth it was one that I had largely created based on my past experiences of academic research gained throughout my three years at university. A lot of different people helped me including my supervisor, laboratory technician, two of my peers who were involved in similar work, a museum curator, and a PhD student within the department. I drew on a range of resources and facilities including collections of ancient animal bones, specialist laboratory, processing software, and articles. The research process was not straightforward and I was forced to modify my process as I realised that certain methods did not give me the results I was hoping for. Being an archaeologist involves ‘digging’ to expose artefacts through which we can interpret the past. Unfortunately, my course only provided a four-week introductory fieldwork course so I joined a number of ‘digs’, six in total run by two different PhD students, a member of the academic staff, a commercial company, and an external public organisation. I probably spent over three months on excavations which gave me valuable insights into how to organise and conduct a dig, how to conduct various types of surveys, how to prepare, identify and display artefacts and beyond this how to work as a member of a team. The commercial digs I undertook introduced me to the world of commercial archaeology and the different approaches and mindsets that are used in the commercial world. One of these [digs] had a particular significance for me. Homeless Heritage . . . is dedicated to working with homeless communities in order to understand and value the spaces used by such communities using archaeological methods. It involved [me] working with homeless people in order to understand the relevance of what [was] found. In this way I was able to form friendships with people I would never have come into contact with in my student life. I began to appreciate the problems of homeless people and to see the world through their eyes. Looking back over my higher education experience I can now see that my course provided me with the basic knowledge I needed but that my attempts to learn archaeology and become an archaeologist involved much more than turning up for lectures and studying the reading list. I believe that the choices I made in getting involved in these wider experiences personalised my experience and the learning I gained from it.

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Michael’s narrative demonstrates how the idea of learning ecologies can be applied to undergraduate higher education. It shows that his process of learning, being, and becoming was not confined to an academic programme. Rather, we see how his motivation to become the sort of archaeologist he wanted to be and his desire to create new meaning form the central purpose around which he forms his personal learning ecologies to develop himself beyond the opportunities his course offered. His goal—to learn archaeology and gain a good degree—sustained his motivation over the 3 years he was studying, but it was the particular projects he embarked on that gave him the opportunities to become the sort of archaeologist he wanted to be. He found opportunities to be and become an archaeologist in different contexts, which grew from the circumstances of his life and the relationships he had formed. Through his narrative, we see him involved in the ecologies for learning created by the teachers in his department, and he describes an experience where he was essentially responsible for designing and implementing his own ecology for learning (his final year research project). We also see several examples of experiences outside the institutional environment where he participated in the learning and practice ecologies of others (archaeological digs), some of which had a significant impact on him. Through his own efforts, he participated in and created experiences for learning, personal development, and achievement in all four of the conceptual spaces shown in Figure 6.6. In this way, he optimised his own education for the future world he intended to inhabit and transformed himself in the process.

Concluding thoughts Optimum educational practice is currently predicated on an explicit alignment of learning intentions, teaching and learning practices, resources and assessment criteria, and practice within a controlled, safe, supportive, low-risk environment, where the primary measure of success is to recall what has been learnt under exam conditions. This approach encourages learners to view learning as a logical, linear, structured, fairly abstract (decontextualized), nonemotional, safe, conflict-free, and essentially independent process. However, learning in the world outside a formal educational environment is contextual and highly situated and is often messy, unstructured, ambiguous, risky, social, conflictual, experiential, and emotional. I believe that we are failing learners if we do not help them recognise this other world of learning and enable them to prepare themselves for learning and performing in it. The ecological perspective offered here attempts to comprehend the dynamics of learning in this more holistic and realistic way. The interpretive frameworks offered can be applied to learning in formal and informal situations, and they embrace work practice contexts, allowing learners to see the relevance of their learning practices in education. I am arguing not for the wholesale replacement of outcomes-based learning but for the adoption, by teachers, of a more comprehensive concept of learning that values the ecological nature of learning and

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practice and expands opportunities for learners to create their own ecologies for learning. The default position is that regardless of whether teachers create opportunities for learners to create their own ecologies for learning, they do it anyway in the spaces that they control. But higher education could do a much better job in designing learning experiences so as to help students to achieve this goal. I believe that the systemic adoption of an ecological worldview in the higher education ecosystem of the United Kingdom is inevitable, but it is unlikely to be accomplished through a top-down strategy. Rather, it will be an unintended consequence of adjusting to the perpetual wicked problem of preparing learners for a lifetime of learning and performing in a world that is becoming more and more complex. Tackling this challenge requires higher education institutions to recognise that learners transform themselves through all the experiences that make up their lives. They can do more to facilitate this transformational process by adopting a lifewide concept of learning, development, and education ( Jackson, 2011a, 2011b) that contains within it the notion that learning is an ecological phenomenon ( Jackson, 2016). I find it both ironic and inspiring that the best estimates of experts on what learning in the not too distant future might look like (Redecker et al., 2011; Luksha et al., 2018) is not too dissimilar to that envisioned nearly a century ago by the great adult educator Eduard Lindeman: A fresh hope is astir. From many quarters comes the call to a new kind of education with its initial assumption affirming that education is life – not merely preparation for an unknown kind of future living. . . . The whole of life is learning, therefore education can have no endings. (Lindeman, 1926, p. 6) Slowly but surely, by design and default, and driven by changes in the world around us, higher education ecosystems are emerging that both encourage and require this vision.

References Baker, B. K. (1999). Learning to fish, fishing to learn: Guided participation in the interpersonal ecology of practice. Clinical Law Review, 6, 1–85. Retrieved from https://papers. ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2104109 Banks, J. A., Au, K. H., Ball, A. F., Bell, P., Gordon, E.W., Gutiérrez, K. D., … Zhou, M. (2007). Learning in and out of school in diverse environments: Lifelong, lifewide, lifedeep. Seattle,WA:The LIFE Centre, University of Washington. Barnett, R. (2011). Lifewide education: A new and transformative concept for higher education. In N. J. Jackson (Ed.), Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development (pp. 22–38). Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. Barnett, R. (2017). The ecological university: A feasible utopia. New York, NY: Routledge. Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning ecologies perspective. Human Development, 49, 193–224.

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Berger, G. (1970). Introduction in OECD-CERI. In Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities. Nice, France: CERI/French Ministry of Education. Daniels, F., Dale, P., Hindmarsh, R., Fellows, C., Buckridge, M., & Cysowki, P. (2007). Interdisciplinary foundations: Reflecting on three decades of teaching and research at Griffith University, Australia. Studies in Higher Education, 32(2), 167–185. Ellis, R., & Goodyear, P. (2010). Students experience of e-learning in HE: A sustainable ecology. New York, NY: Routledge. Ingold, T. (2000). Hunting and gathering as ways of perceiving the environment. In The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. New York, NY: Routledge. Jackson, N. J. (2003). Engaging and changing higher education through brokerage. Farnham, United Kingdom: Ashgate. Jackson, N. J. (Ed.). (2011a). Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. Jackson, N. J. (2011b). An imaginative lifewide curriculum. In N. J. Jackson (Ed.), Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development (pp. 100–121). Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. Jackson, N. J. (2014). The wicked challenge of changing a university: Encouraging bottom-up innovation through strategic change. Background paper for a short course at the University of Limerick. Retrieved from http://www.creativeacademic.uk/ uploads/1/3/5/4/13542890/__the_wicked_problem_of_changing_a_university.pdf Jackson, N. J. (2016). Exploring learning ecologies. Chalk Mountain, TX: Lulu. Levin, S. A. (1998). Ecosystems and the biosphere as complex adaptive systems. Ecosystems, 1, 431–436 Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi= 10.1.1.83.6318&rep=rep1&type=pdf Lindeman, E. C. (1926). The meaning of adult education. New York, NY: New Republic, republished in 1989 by Oklahoma Research Center for Continuing Professional and Higher Education. Retrieved from http://archive.org/details/meaningofadulted00lind Luksha, P., Cubista, J., Laszlo, A., Popovich, M., Ninenko, I., & Participants of GEF Sessions in 2014–2017. (2018). Educational ecosystems for societal transformation: Global education futures. Report of the Global Educational Initiative. Retrieved from https://edu2035. org/images/people/GEF_april26-min.pdf Mars, M., Bronstein, J., & Lusch, R. (2014). Organisations as ecosystems: Probing the value of a metaphor. Rotman Management,Winter, 73–77. Retrieved from https://entrepreneurship. eller.arizona.edu/sites/entrepreneurship/files/attachments/PDFs/organizations_as_ecosystems.pdf Redecker, C., Leis, M., Leendertse, M., Punie, Y., Gijsbers, G., Kirschner, P., Stoyanov, S. & Hoogveld, B. (2011). The future of learning: Preparing for change. Publications Office of the European Union. Retrieved from http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub. cfm?id=4719 Richardson, A. (2002). An ecology of learning and the role of elearning in the learning environment: A discussion paper. Global Summit organized by Education.au Ltd. Retrieved from http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/ unpan007791.pdf Seel, R. (2000). Culture and complexity, new insights on organisational change. Organisations & People, 7(2), 2–9. Retrieved from http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk/culture-complex. htm Tansley, A. G. (1935). The use and abuse of vegetational terms and concepts. Ecology, 16(3), 284–307.

7 ECOLOGICAL THINKING ABOUT EDUCATION STRATEGY IN UNIVERSITIES Peter Goodyear and Robert A. Ellis

Introduction In this chapter, we use some ecological ideas to examine a core problem with institutional education strategies. Education strategies, sometimes called learning and teaching strategies, are meant to help the multifarious members of a university coordinate key parts of their work. The documents in which education strategies are inscribed normally make reference to the deeper purposes and distinctive nature of each university’s educational programmes. Among other things, they allude to desirable graduate capabilities, and they outline course, curriculum, and assessment designs compatible with the formation of those capabilities. Education strategies also help establish desiderata for congenial learning environments, with implications for the digital and material resources on which successful student learning partly depends. However, our recent research reveals that senior university leaders and managers experience serious difficulties in aligning the different aspects of their work. In particular, it turns out that few of them exhibit an understanding of how to connect valued outcomes to student learning activities to appropriately supportive learning environments. We suggest that ecological ideas can provide the intellectual resources needed for leaders to reason about and discuss these connections. In other words, we argue for an ecological conception of university learning and teaching to inform the creation and interpretation of educational strategies. As we will explain, we also see it as vitally important for students themselves to partake in this work: to have a richer and sharper understanding of what is involved in co-creating their own learning tasks and environments.

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Education strategies The idea of a university having an explicit education strategy is relatively new. Our research has mostly taken place within British and Australian universities, and in both systems, institution-wide education strategies are largely an invention of the 1990s. In Britain, funding councils began to require universities to formulate such strategies after the Dearing Report (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, 1997). In Australia, they developed in the early 1990s (Gibbs, Habeshaw, and Yorke, 2000; Shah, Nair, and Wilson, 2011). Over the same period, their use also evolved in many other countries as part of broader systems of state-mandated quality assurance and/or in response to increasing competition for funds, talent, and status (Martin and Parikh, 2017). In many university systems, the creation of education strategies can be seen as a response to changing environmental circumstances and expectations. As Gibbs et al. (2000) observe in the case of the United Kingdom, prior to the 1980s, incremental enhancement of well-established approaches to teaching and learning was the norm, with most initiatives being local (at the course or department level) and low cost (so not requiring coordination or resourcing from higher levels in the institution). However, growing student numbers, diversifying student needs and expectations, shrinking real-terms resources, new forms of credentialing, increasing competition, intensifying staff workloads, and increasing demands on staff to perform well in both research and teaching have combined to make some established educational approaches unsustainable. In parallel, the establishment and/or strengthening of national quality assurance regimes has meant that university leadership teams must take a whole-of-institution approach to the management of quality assurance and, to a lesser extent, quality enhancement (Land and Gordon, 2013). Major innovations in curriculum, course, and assessment design, including modularization and the growing use of resource-based learning, need whole-of-institution management and necessarily entail the use of corporate tools such as strategic plans. External regulation and funding may have been the main driving forces that first persuaded university leaders of the need to develop education strategies. But it is clear that defining and aligning priorities and resources across the complicated vertical and horizontal structures of a university needs a set of strategic documents and processes for working with them. Nevertheless, research into universities’ use of education strategies reveals a great deal of uncertainty about what they are for, how they actually function, and how to make them function more effectively. Strategies work indirectly, and they are routinely reinterpreted, subverted, and/or appropriated (e.g., Trowler, 1998; Newton, 2003; Smith, 2008; Shah and Richardson, 2016). In this respect, universities are rather like other complex organizations, such as businesses or armies, within which the nature and purposes of strategy are contested. That said, few scholars who have studied strategy seriously have shown how organizational life may proceed without it, especially in times of rapid change (Freedman, 2013).

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We are particularly interested in how senior leaders who have responsibility for complementary areas of university strategy talk about the core challenges in their work, and we propose some ways in which they might more readily integrate what they do, across various portfolios. The notion of educational ecology as an applied science is a key part of our intended contribution. However, we are not driven by a simple desire to make management more efficient. Rather, we use ecologically inspired ideas to mould a stronger sense of coherence between the needs and emerging practices of all the university’s denizens, both internally—students, academics, and professional staff—and externally, with partners such as employers and community groups. Our motivation comes, in large part, from the value we place on the distinctive contribution that universities can make in helping find more sustainable modes of human life (Barnett, 2018). Rather than documenting, in yet more detail, the damage done to universities by a fast-failing neoliberal approach, our choice is to look at how universities might prepare themselves for the foreseeable challenges of the future (Manzini, 2015). A key thread in our argument is that universities need to strengthen their capacities to distribute leadership more widely, including, indeed especially, to students, and that this is inherently complicated and needs appropriate shared concepts, tools, and methods (Bolden, Petrov, and Gosling, 2009; Floyd and Preston, 2018; Matthews, Dwyer, Hine, and Turner, 2018; Matthews, Cook-Sather, Acai, Dvorakova, Felten, Marquis, and Mercer-Mapstone, 2019; Carvalho and Goodyear, 2018). An ecologically inspired approach to understanding and improving learning environments needs and encourages continuity across levels and functions in the organization. It also highlights conceptual and operational fractures. The rest of this chapter falls into two main parts. First, we summarise a recent investigation in which our research team interviewed leaders from Australian universities and uncovered some of the difficulties they experience in developing institutional strategies. The main outcomes from this study provide the rationale for what we espouse and explain in the second part of the chapter, namely educational ecology as an applied science.

Education, information technology, and estates leaders in Australian universities Approach The empirical research informing this chapter involved interviews with 54 senior leaders from Australian universities. In almost every case, the interviewee was the most senior person in the institution with responsibility for the following: • • •

Education strategy: typically, the deputy vice-chancellor education (DVCE) Information technology (IT): typically, the chief information officer (CIO) Buildings and estates: typically, the director of estates (DoE)

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We held in-depth, semi-structured interviews with roughly equal numbers of DVCEs, CIOs, and DoEs (n = 19, 18, and 17, respectively) drawn from 39 of Australia’s 42 universities. We also gathered documents from each university, relevant to their education, IT, and estates strategies. Our interviewing team included three people with in-depth experience of the areas concerned: a DVCE (Klomp), a former CIO (Meikle), and an architect and academic specializing in learning spaces (Fisher). (See Acknowledgements, below.) Each was also involved in analysing the institutional documents and interview transcripts. Further information about methods and findings can be found in Ellis and Goodyear (2019). Interviews were focused on (1) new and emerging course and curriculum designs and (2) the requirements these placed on university learning environments, including better integration of digital and physical facilities. In this chapter, we focus on reported difficulties in aligning education, IT, and estates strategies.

Main outcomes Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts and associated documents led to the identification of five ‘organizational elements’: strategy itself, together with governance, policy, management, and funding (Table 7.1). Four of the organizational elements were spoken of in relation to the education strategy. In other words, interpretation, implementation, and monitoring of and revisions to the education strategy need appropriate governance and management. The aims and values of the strategy need to be captured in appropriate policy statements. Funding and other resources need to be aligned with the priorities and tempo of the strategy implementation. Each of the five organizational elements has to be well-developed and articulated to function properly; they have to be complete, and they also need to be TABLE 7.1  Five organizational elements

Strategy Governance Policy

Management Funding

The means by which a university community decides on key priorities for courses, curricula, learning and teaching, learning spaces, learning resources, IT, etc., over the next time period The mechanism(s) by which the university implements strategy: how decisions are made, how progress is measured, how processes need to adapt and change in order to make strategy work. Policy documents provide a means of connecting higher-level goals and values with specific actions ‘on the ground’; they typically combine statements of intent and procedural guidance, specifying mandated, desirable, and/or prohibited actions Guiding the activities of the people—teaching staff, providers of infrastructure, etc.—whose work directly shapes learning opportunities and learning environments for students The means by which the university provides resources that enable strategy to be shaped by governance and implemented through policy documents and management processes

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brought into alignment. The leaders we interviewed had significant concerns about both completeness and alignment. Our own experts’ appraisals of the interview transcripts and other institutional documents backed this up. In short, very few universities could demonstrate both well-developed and well-aligned organizational elements. In our interviews with education, IT, and estates leaders, it became clear that each leader saw the education strategy as centrally important, even though IT and estates leaders also had responsibilities for other areas, such as research and administration. Generalising across the whole set of interviewees, education strategy was spoken of in the following terms: • • •

• •

Firmly anchored to the university’s espoused mission Focused on the quality of the student experience (or students’ experiences) Aimed at producing graduates with a deep grounding in one or more disciplinary areas, a versatility needed to work in multidisciplinary and/or multiprofessional teams, and generic attributes required in modern workplaces (communication and information skills, teamworking, self-management, and so on) Balancing the demands of quality assurance and risk management against the need for educational innovation and risk taking Requiring appropriate support from IT and estates to support new pedagogical approaches and to meet the expectations and needs of new groups of students.

The survey by Graham Gibbs and colleagues (2000) of English universities’ teaching and learning strategies, carried out 20 years ago, showed great divergence in what university leadership teams understood such strategies to be. Over time, and through benchmarking and sharing of practice, there has been considerable convergence, with a strong shared focus on the quality of the student experience and a growing use of performance targets at multiple levels, including individual teachers, courses and programmes, departments and faculties, universities, and even entire university systems (Shah and Richardson, 2016; Williams and Leahy, 2018). Our interviews with Australian university leaders revealed a consensus about the core purpose and key elements of an education strategy. However, some important differences began to emerge when we drilled further down. The CIOs and DoEs were particularly critical of education strategies that left them to guess what DVCEs or faculties actually required. Ensuring that IT and learning space provision align with education strategy is a significant concern for the CIOs and DoEs. It is not easily accomplished. As they were quick to point out, education strategy is rarely expressed with the clarity or precision needed to make decisions about the digital and material infrastructures for which they have responsibility. Academics, like other inhabitants of complex organisations, can be adept at improvising language to cover gaps and mismatches between

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intentions and outcomes. However, those who provide the hardware and software have much less room for manoeuvre. The more closely we looked at the problems leaders described—about articulating and aligning the five organizational elements and aligning education, IT, and estates strategies—the more aware we became of a conceptual void at a point where these should be intersecting. In short, the leaders did not appear to have a shared explanatory model of the processes through which students’ activities lead to valued outcomes or how learning environments affect students’ activities. The leaders and the institutional documents with which they worked referred, in one way or another, to the centrality of ‘the student experience’ and the importance of taking a ‘student-centred’ approach to planning. The first of these is generally operationalized through measures of student satisfaction, retention rates, and, down the track, graduate employment statistics. University staff at all levels have become accustomed to using such data to provide evidence of success. However, these outcome measures have taken on a pre-eminent position, not least in the absence of shared explanations of process. Leaders express the need to improve performance by increasing the thresholds for target outcome measures. But the processes that lead to the outcomes remain mysterious (Figure 7.1). Alongside this, ‘student-centredness’ is hard to operationalize in digital or material terms. CIOs and DoEs find themselves relying on concrete simplifications (e.g., ‘to support small group learning activities’) and stereotypes (e.g., ‘to meet the needs of supposed digital natives’). When the leaders talked about the role of governance in regulating the implementation of education strategy, they underscored the need to be guided by the

FIGURE 7.1 

outcomes.

The core conceptual void: the processes linking strategic inputs to valued

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idea of student centredness and to have a sharp eye on the quality of the student experience. But what did not come though from the interviews was a clear sense of what this meant. In our view, governance needs to be exercised by people who can describe, explain, and discuss good learning; the processes by which learning comes about; and the environments that are conducive to different kinds of valued learning activity. We suggest an approach to making these links in the final part of the chapter. In a similar way, policy needs to be infused with, or at least underpinned by, an informed sense of the links between desired learning outcomes, appropriate student learning activities, and the affordances of different kinds of learning environments. For example, CIOs and DoEs lamented the absence of policy-led standards for online environments and learning spaces, indicating once again the conceptual gaps between environments, activities, and outcomes. This means policy can readily refer to desired outcomes—it can address some quality assurance matters, by reference to acceptable standards—but it is not always shaped so as to deal with the processes that generate those outcomes; hence, the difficulty both policy and governance have in guiding educational innovation, experimentation, and enhancement. Turning to the other two organizational elements of management and funding, we will focus on an area that CIOs and DoEs described as particularly fraught: the management of major projects intended to support the education strategy. Three kinds of problems came up regularly in the interviews: vague requirements, disputed ownership, and mistakes in structuring budgets. The CIOs and DoEs are responsible for delivering new IT services and providing learning spaces on time and on budget. But they have to do this in circumstances where (1) there is often a lack of clarity and/or agreement about who constitute the most relevant stakeholders and (2) stakeholders rarely have the concepts or language to clearly specify what they need. The issues bound up in (1) are exacerbated when there is a failure to resolve whether a new facility is to be shared or is mainly for local use. For example, a new physical space may be exclusively for students of nearby academic departments or open to everyone. The issues in (2) mean that projects are often initiated without a clear functional specification. So, for example, it turns out to be impossible to identify criteria for a postoccupancy evaluation (Imms, Cleveland, and Fisher, 2016). When major projects have tight time and budget specifications but a loose specification of the standards in mind, quality (fitness for purpose) will suffer. The other aspect of managing major projects to which CIOs and DoEs commonly referred was the structuring of budgets. It is often easier to secure capital for a new build or a new learning management system than to earmark the recurrent funding needed to ensure that the new infrastructure can continue to function effectively. This becomes even more complex when the capital budget is managed centrally by the CIO or DoE but where the recurrent costs need to be found from faculty budgets. The shadow of deterministic thinking can be seen at work here, as if agency is being granted new digital tools or learning spaces

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and that investment in a new tool or learning space will bring about pedagogical change and better educational outcomes. For example, a particular bugbear for CIOs and DoEs was the failure of faculties to make financial provision for the professional development of the academics who would be teaching in new spaces or with new digital tools. Two fundamental issues seem to underpin the difficulties our interviewees described. First is the underdevelopment of education strategy and weaknesses in its connection to accompanying organizational elements—governance, policy, management, and funding. This is partly attributable to the neglect of processes that lead to valued outcomes. This neglect makes it very hard indeed to align strategy, governance, policy, management, and funding and to align education, IT, and physical learning spaces. Secondly, the growing sophistication and complexity of course and curriculum design and digital and physical infrastructures mean that individual teachers, working on their own, can no longer tackle all the preparatory work required. Until quite recently, much of the planning for teaching and learning could be done by solo academics through private thought and scholarship and their own experiential learning. Now, most major educational projects involve multidisciplinary and interprofessional teams, with members drawn from different functional areas and levels of the organizational hierarchy. In other professions, such teams depend upon shared concepts, mental models, and terminology and access to shared external representations (charts, diagrams, blueprints, and so on) to coordinate their work. It seems clear that university teams doing this work rarely have such resources and that interactions between academic, IT, and estates staff often have to work with quite rudimentary conceptual tools and language. This needs to change.

Educational ecology as an applied science Having identified some of the difficulties that university leaders experience in aligning the planning of digital and physical infrastructure with the needs of education strategy, we now aim to show how educational ecology can provide them with some useful concepts and methods. We begin by explaining what we mean by educational ecology and open up the prospect of educational ecology as an applied science. We also outline a participatory approach to embedding ecologically informed inquiry, planning, and design into the working practices and fabric of the university. In other words, we aim to show how an ecologically informed understanding of the connections between and among valued outcomes, learning activities, and learning environments can improve the creation and interpretation of education strategies and their associated organizational elements.

Rationale: Addressing the conceptual void We suggest that the conceptual void identified above results from deep uncertainties among the protagonists about the most appropriate unit

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of analysis (for this inquiry) and about the most appropriate ‘object of design’ (Damşa and Jornet, 2016; Secomandi and Snelders, 2011). In other words, when university leaders and their teams are engaged in retrospective, inquiry-oriented research and evaluation work or in forward-looking, action-oriented design and planning, there is no agreement about ontology. This needs to be remedied. We take from Bruce Macfarlane (2017) the phrase ‘student as managed customer’ and suggest that this best describes the placeholder in contemporary leadership discourse about learning and learning environments. In the absence of a shared explanatory model to underpin education and infrastructure leadership, discussion defaults to ‘keeping the customer satisfied’ (and managing their expectations), to stereotypes (the digital native; students trading effort for grades), and to the everyday psychology of teaching and learning (‘covering the content’, ‘deep understanding’, ‘engagement’, ‘absorbing ideas’, ‘motivating the learner’, and so on). In place of this, we suggest that everyone involved in processes of higher education, from students to vice-chancellors, needs a working knowledge of how to set up and nurture convivial epistemic environments—that is, a knowledge of how to bring together the mesh of tasks, tools, and people required to analyse a problematic situation and decide on a course of action. The personal capacities needed to do this can be referred to as ‘epistemic resourcefulness’, and they are an aspect of ‘epistemic fluency’ (Markauskaite and Goodyear, 2017). We refer to ‘epistemic environments’ rather than ‘learning environments’ because the former include the latter. ‘Learning environment’ is a good term when intentional learning is the core task. But quite often, in the day-to-day activities undertaken by students and staff, learning is a by-product of some other kind of collaborative, knowledge-laden, problem-solving task ( Jackson, 2013). We can now describe this in ecological terms by explaining what an applied science of educational ecology would entail. Such a science needs conceptual foundations and working methods. We sketch the first of these now and some ways and means in the final subsection.

Conceptual foundations In a recent paper, David Hammer and colleagues (2018) look to ecology for methods of making knowledge that can be useful in understanding local learning systems. It can be argued that too many practitioners in higher education too often assume that educationally useful knowledge will be generally applicable and lawlike: that evidence-based practice entails using lawlike statements from the science of learning to justify specific pedagogical decisions. Ecology rarely proceeds on that basis and has made gains by stressing the particular: [I]t is a mistake to presume that general laws are the only form of useful knowledge. Rather, ecology has been advancing significantly through the

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development of local causal mechanisms and approaches to testing for their occurrence in systems. (Hammer, Gouvea, and Watkins, 2018, p. 14) Barnett (2018; see also Chapter 1 of this book) makes the useful observation that ecology is a hybrid term, which can connote both a science and its objects of study. In Ellis and Goodyear (2019), we lay out some foundations for such a science by reviewing the ecologically inspired educational literature. We organized that review by drawing out ideas on four planes or levels, while also acknowledging that one of the strengths of ecology is the way it moves fluently between local and global. In brief, we move through levels by drawing on: • • • •

Barnett’s account of how universities are woven into global ecologies (Barnett, 2018) Ellis and Goodyear (2010) and Bain and Zundans-Fraser (2017) on universities as self-improving institutional ecologies Luckin (2010) on ecologies of educational resources Bronfenbrenner (1979) on the ecology of individual human development

From these sources, we bring together the following foundational ideas. From Barnett (2018), we take the idea that each university is enmeshed in seven much wider ecological zones. What happens in those wider spaces has practical implications for work within each university, including imagining desirable futures; moreover, universities can and should play a role in improving the health of the broader ecologies. In relation to institutional self-regulation and self-improvement (Ellis and Goodyear, 2010, 2019; Bain and Zundans-Fraser, 2017), we note that such capacities depend upon timely flows of actionable knowledge and the means to make and explain evaluative judgements about the quality of the educational work being done. They need to be infused with a shared sense of good learning and teaching. From work by Luckin (2010) and others on designs for ecologies of learning, we draw the idea that the digital and material environment plays a substantial role in learning; that learning activity needs to be understood as physically and socially situated; and that a better understanding is needed of relations between learning activities and the material qualities of tools and spaces that situate those activities. From Bronfenbrenner (1979), Clark (2011), Hutchins (2010), and others, we take the heuristic that it is dangerous to draw the boundaries of the student at the surface of their skin; it is better by far to understand how they and their environment are a closely coupled ‘developmental system’ (Ingold, 2000). In combination, these ideas allow us to place situated learning in activity systems at the centre of an ecological conception of higher education practices: The defining characteristic of a situative approach is that instead of focusing on individual learners, the main focus of analysis is on activity

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systems: complex social organisations containing learners, teachers, curriculum materials, software tools, and the physical environment. (Greeno, 2006, p. 79, emphasis added) We would modify this influential definition somewhat to avoid its notion of containment and would prefer to recast it in terms of a complex sociomaterial meshwork involving learners, teachers, curriculum materials, software tools, and the physical environment, acknowledging that ‘our lives play out in hybrid spaces where physical and virtual resources integrate in complex ways to support us in our activities’ (Dohn, 2018, p. 3). Figure 7.2 provides a conceptual model linking the actions of educational, IT, and estates leaders (and their teams) to the environments they can help create, to the mediating activities of students, and on to valued outcomes. Although this helps fill the conceptual and ontological void, we need to make one further point to clarify a limit on education strategy: neither learning nor activity systems can be designed, but they can be designed for. In other words, the teams led by CIOs and DoEs can and should focus their efforts on the tools and infrastructure and on the spaces and places needed by a manageable array of different kinds of activity systems. Easily recognizable examples of activity systems include a class of students in a lecture; a number of co-located, loosely supervised small groups working on related tasks; a laboratory class; an online discussion group; and a solo student reading e-prints for an essay while travelling home on the bus. In simple terms, each can be analysed as a conjunction of a kind of task, a set of tools, and a division of labour. Resources and environments cannot be predesigned for an infinitely variable array of kinds of activity systems, but they can be packaged in anticipation of recurrent activities, and students do learn how to reconfigure tasks and resources on the fly (Markauskaite and Goodyear, 2017; Ellis and Goodyear, 2019).

FIGURE 7.2 

Linking strategic inputs to environments to activities to outcomes.

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We see this as, potentially, a deep strength of the approach we are sketching. Students should be helped to understand that epistemic resourcefulness includes a capacity to configure future environments for inquiry, learning, problem solving, decision taking, and action. These are part of what it means to be an autonomous lifelong, lifewide learner, a capable knowledge worker, and a critical citizen. Such a conception helps align thinking about learning activities and learning environments at each level in a university hierarchy. In its absence, there is a risk of serious conceptual discontinuities between (say) leaders’ strategic plans and students’ everyday experiences.

Ways and means: Approaches to understanding and action An applied science of educational ecology needs foundational concepts to help make a theoretical framing. It also needs some suitable methods for inquiry and action. Because of the value we place on shared conceptions—across students, teaching staff, senior managers, and their teams in coordinating their action—we also value inclusive approaches to inquiry and action. Perhaps the clearest example is participatory design-based research (e.g., Bang and Vossoughi, 2016; Zavala, 2016). In design-based research (DBR), educational innovators and researchers work closely with teachers, students, and other stakeholders to embed new tools, pedagogical methods, learning resources, and so forth. Iterative processes of evaluation and redesign help uncover what is working well (and how), what needs improving (and why), and what actual changes should be made. However, DBR is normally led by researcher-innovators whose primary interests are to advance general theory. Participatory DBR is emerging as a form of inquiry and action that is much more responsive to student and community needs. It combines critical analysis and remediation: [C]hange is not just about conventional forms of what we typically label learning and practice but is also about transformative social change. In our view, transformative social change involves the interweaving of structural critiques with the enactment of alternative forms of hereand-now activity that open up qualitatively distinct social relations, forms of learning and knowledge development, and contribute to the intellectual thriving and well-being of students, teachers, families, and communities. (Bang and Vossoughi, 2016, p. 175) Participatory DBR is currently evolving most rapidly in school and community settings, but it seems to us to be a promising approach for framing some important areas of innovative activity in higher education. For example, ‘students as partners’ initiatives (e.g., Matthews, Dwyer, Hine, and Turner, 2018) are demonstrating the benefits that can flow from offering

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students opportunities for exercising agency in shaping their learning tasks and environments. In addition, many universities are experimenting with course and co-curricular offerings that help university students learn to participate in community-based social innovation projects (Ellis and Goodyear, 2019; Manzini, 2015). Approaches like participatory DBR gain strength from combining the analytic and the normative. They rise to the intellectual and technical challenges involved in understanding how a local learning ecology actually functions, and they couple understanding with a commitment to action. After all: The concept of ecology has a subtle ought-ness. If an ecosystem is found to be impaired, then one has a responsibility to help to restore it to good health. And so it is with the university. (Barnett, 2018, p. 8)

Conclusions In this chapter, we have used some of our recent research with university leaders to identify a significant problem they have with creating and implementing education strategies. Our informants presented this in terms of the difficulties involved in aligning education, IT, and estates strategies, such that educational innovation could be properly supported by well-planned and integrated environments for learning. Our diagnosis uncovered a conceptual void that can be filled by adapting ecological ideas to focus leaders’ attention on student learning as situated in activity systems. The formulation, discussion, and enactment of education strategies take on much greater purpose and substance when grounded in shared understandings of how local learning ecologies function. We also suggested that there could be a helpful alignment between distributed forms of educational leadership and the goal of helping students learn how to configure congenial environments for their future knowledge work. This makes it useful to have shared conceptions of how to design, analyse, and improve learning environments—shared between staff, students, and external stakeholders—rather than perpetuating conceptual and operational silos.

Acknowledgements We are glad to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Nick Klomp, Bruce Meikle, and Kenn Fisher in conducting and analysing the interview and documentary material. Norman Jackson and Ronald Barnett provided very helpful feedback on our draft chapter. We acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council: Grant DP150104163 Modelling Complex Learning Spaces.

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References Bain, A., & Zundans-Fraser, L. (2017). The self-organizing university: Designing the higher education organization for quality learning and teaching. Singapore: Springer Nature. Bang, M., & Vossoughi, S. (2016). Participatory design research and educational justice: Studying learning and relations within social change making. Cognition and Instruction, 34(3), 173–193. Barnett, R. (2018). The ecological university: A feasible utopia. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. Bolden, R., Petrov, G., and Gosling, J. (2009). Distributed leadership in higher education: Rhetoric and reality. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 37(2), 257–277. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carvalho, L., & Goodyear, P. (2018). Design, learning and service innovation. Design Studies, 55, 27–53. Clark, A. (2011). Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Damşa, C. I., & Jornet, A. (2016). Revisiting learning in higher education: Framing notions redefined through an ecological perspective. Frontline Learning Research, 4(4), 39–47. Dohn, N. (Ed.). (2018). Designing for learning in a networked world. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. Ellis, R., & Goodyear, P. (2010). Students’ experiences of e-learning in higher education: The ecology of sustainable innovation. New York, NY: Routledge. Ellis, R., & Goodyear, P. (2019). The education ecology of universities: Integrating learning, strategy and the academy. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. Floyd, A., & Preston, D. (2018).The role of the associate dean in UK universities: Distributed leadership in action? Higher Education, 75, 925–943. Freedman, L. (2013). Strategy: A history. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Gibbs, G., Habeshaw, T., & Yorke, M. (2000). Institutional learning and teaching strategies in English higher education. Higher Education, 40(3), 351–372. Greeno, J. (2006). Learning in activity. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 79–96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hammer, D., Gouvea, J., & Watkins, J. (2018). Idiosyncratic cases and hopes for general validity: What education research might learn from ecology. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 1–49. doi: 10.1080/02103702.2018.1504887 Hutchins, E. (2010). Cognitive ecology. Topics in Cognitive Science, 2, 705–715. Imms, W., Cleveland, B., & Fisher, K. (Eds.). (2016). Evaluating learning environments: Snapshots of emerging issues, methods and knowledge. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense. Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. Jackson, N. J. (2013). The concept of learning ecologies. In N. J. Jackson & G. B. Cooper (Eds.), Lifewide learning, education and personal development. Chapter A5. Retrieved from www.lifewideebook.co.uk Land, R., & Gordon, G. (Eds.). (2013). Enhancing quality in higher education: International perspectives. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. Luckin, R. (2010). Re-designing learning contexts: Technology-rich, learner-centred ecologies. New York, NY: Routledge. Macfarlane, B. (2017). Freedom to learn:The threat to student academic freedom and why it needs to be reclaimed. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge.

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Manzini, E. (2015). Design, when everybody designs: An introduction to design for social innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Markauskaite, L., & Goodyear, P. (2017). Epistemic fluency and professional education: Innovation, knowledgeable action and actionable knowledge. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Martin, M., & Parikh, S. (2017). Quality management in higher education: Developments and drivers—Results from an international survey. Paris, France: UNESCO. Matthews, K. E., Cook-Sather, A., Acai, A., Dvorakova, S. L., Felten, P., Marquis, E., & Mercer-Mapstone, L. (2019). Toward theories of partnership praxis: An analysis of interpretive framing in literature on students as partners in teaching and learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 38(2), 280–293. doi: 10.1080/07294360.2018.1530199 Matthews, K. E., Dwyer, A., Hine, L., & Turner, J. (2018). Conceptions of students as partners. Higher Education, 76(6), 957–971. National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education. (1997). Higher education in the learning society (the Dearing Report). London, United Kingdom: HMSO Newton, J. (2003). Implementing an institution-wide learning and teaching strategy: Lessons in managing change. Studies in Higher Education, 28(4), 427–441. Secomandi, F., & Snelders, D. (2011).The object of service design. Design Issues, 27(3), 20–34. Shah, M., Nair, S., & Wilson, M. (2011). Quality assurance in Australian higher education: Historical and future development. Asia Pacific Educational Review, 12, 475–483. Shah, M., & Richardson, J. (2016). Is the enhancement of student experience a strategic priority in Australian universities? Higher Education Research & Development, 35(2), 352–364. Smith, K. (2008). ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’The discourse of learning and teaching strategies. Higher Education, 56(4), 395–406. Trowler, P. (1998). Academics responding to change: New higher education frameworks and academic cultures. Buckingham, United Kingdom: SRHE/Open University Press. Williams, R., & Leahy, A. (2018). U21 ranking of national higher education systems. Melbourne, Australia: Universitas 21. Zavala, M. (2016). Design, participation, and social change: What design in grassroots spaces can teach learning scientists. Cognition and Instruction, 34(3), 236–249.

8 EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES Ann Pendleton-Jullian

Preamble While originally written 10 years ago as a provocation for the innovation of architectural education and related design fields, I have since come to realize that the concept on which I focus here has substantially broader application. Its thinking has been generalized to build serious studios in public policy, humanities, ethics, international and foreign affairs, and self-reflectively, education itself. These have been inquiry-based studios taking on distinctly contemporary, and often intractable, problems.

Introduction A natural ecosystem is the complex of interconnected living organisms inhabiting a particular area together with their environment and all their relationships and interactions with each other and their environment (Ostroumov, 2002, p. 141). But what happens at the boundaries of ecosystems, where one set of environmental conditions merge into another? This interface is known as an ecotone, which is an important phenomenon in natural ecosystems and, I argue, an important analogy for thinking about how one might design environments of innovation. In nature, estuarine intertidal zones are extraordinary landscapes and dynamic waterland habitats. As ecological zones where two distinct ecosystems overlap or grade into one another, they contain an abundance of diverse species and a complex set of exchange dynamics. Scientists call these habitats ecotones. Ecotones are typologically unique ecosystems connecting two distinctly different plant and animal communities and the physical characteristics that support those communities.

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But these zones are more than just zones of transition. They are areas of disturbance and change, catalysed by the differences in the two ecosystems, and they are often zones of conflict as well. The word’s etymology derives from a combination of two Greek words: eco from oikos meaning house and tone, from tonos, meaning tension—ecologies in tension. Ecotones are not merely the blending of two habitats and their characteristics, but actually a third entity. ‘Although ecotones share some characteristics and species with the habitats on either side of them, ecotones also have their own distinct characteristics and species.’1 Landscape and environmental ecology theory, especially as it relates to spatial configuration at the human scale, is barely more than three decades old. Yet in recognizing that ‘humanity is now in charge of most of the land surface, and responsible for it’ (Forman, 1995, pp. xiii-xiv), landscape ecology theory explicitly links humanity with the complex structure of our ecosystems from local sites to vast territories. At the same time, as science has rescaled its focus from the universe to the planet to the body, and as technologies retool and shift from operating on things that are external to living organisms, to operating on organisms themselves, to operating on the matter that makes up the organisms, we begin to enter a truly new cultural terrain in which we grasp that we are not just affecting the environment at unprecedented scales and at accelerating rates, but that we are actually part of the contiguous matter of these larger material systems.2 Given this interconnectedness of humanity and the natural world, theories, models, observations, and experiments related to landscape and environmental ecology are proving increasingly useful to our understanding of other kinds of complex systems across diverse disciplines. Such understandings allow us to think about change and resiliency in a different way and enable us to construct new models to explain such phenomena. As an architect and educator, I want to apply the concept of the ecotone developed for the natural world to the design of an ecosystem for architectural design education. But I do this in the belief that it is also applicable to other disciplines, institutional systems, and situations, either directly or as an analogy.

Importance of edges for innovation Much discussion in terms of accelerating capability-building in business, sports, government, education, disciplinary entities, or subjects even focuses on the value of activities that operate at the edge. In this discussion, edge can mean many different things, for example, the edge of an enterprise, the edge of methods and processes associated with the enterprise, geographic edges, or demographic edges—a ‘whole set of edges that create the opportunity for capability-building’ (Hagel and Brown, 2005). The implication within all these discussions is that work at the edge is unfettered and unencumbered by the inertia of core activity. Working at the edge is more open to radically transformative and innovative forces and processes. These forces and processes, if tapped into, can reshape and transform the core,

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which is something that the core will not do under the sheer inertia of its own historical operations. In these discussions, edge and core are separate and unique fields of activity—discrete in their operations except for moments of catalytic communication. In this chapter, I propose that within the dynamics of 21st century environments, dialectically opposing constructs and simple polarised positions are not as productive or constructive as they once were. The innovation ecotone concept outlined below proposes a third concept—a concept of overlap, transition, or gradient. It proposes a sustainable educational environment: a space of pervasive innovation that is talent rich and talent diverse.

‘Now’ as the design brief Designers are, by nature, an opportunistic species. They work with and on problems, finding or creating openings from which to make things. And where there are no clear and present problems defined, they go out and find them embedded in the intricacy of everyday life. By problems, I do not merely refer to things that are manifestly problematic but to opportunities for working on the questions, puzzles, issues, and enigmas that are inherent to human existence, its behaviour, and its structures. In using the word designers, I am speaking inclusively about those who design things—with design meant as a constructive process by which the designer takes on problems, models them, frames them, and creates a response through the distribution of material, real or virtual, in space—and those who engage in design as a constructive process where the product may be thought itself—conceptual, strategic, structural, or systemic in nature. The beauty of design as an approach to life, specifically as life is associated with the material and human environments in which it is embedded, is its creative opportunistic tendencies. The entrepreneurialism associated with these tendencies has always been a driving force and one that has been effective in negotiating change. But as the dynamics are now shifting in the contemporary context and as the rate of change quickens and becomes more pervasive and persistent, this effectiveness is at risk. We are living in a moment of great change, as opposed to a state of stability, in the sciences, technology, politics, economy, society, and culture. We are facing immense growth of new knowledge that is continuously influencing this rate of change while we are embedded in societies that are more aware of the fragility of the world we inhabit. As designers, architects, and educators, how well are we engaging with these horizons of new knowledge and environments of new practices? As educators of creative individuals, how can we best help them engage with these increasingly immense knowledge horizons and new practices? How can we best cultivate motivations through which they will navigate these new environments with purpose, meaning, and intent? And how do we help them develop the social and environmental awareness for an ecologically fragile world?

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Analogies for designing Fifteen years ago, my image of design was like navigating the course of a sailboat—determining the basic trajectory, finding the north, setting sail, and tacking with the wind and currents to keep on course. In this image, the winds and currents are analogous to the parameters of a problem, including the questions, responses, and discoveries made along the way. This analogy allowed for unexpected deviations, whether minor, major, or even completely being blown off course. Navigating the process, the richness of making new discoveries, and arriving relatively undamaged were all dependent on the designer’s tactical openness while steadily moving through the process with consistent intentions. The sailboat has now been replaced with the image of a kayak in white water, moving fast through changing topologies. Designers now operate in an environment in which major epistemological and cultural shifts are challenging territorialized ideologies and identities at an increasing pace and where accelerated change, complex problems, and significant scientific innovations are leading to the elasticity of our professional and disciplinary barriers and our cultural and political practices. We are no longer sailing along the surface of our environment, responding with some sense of orientation, control, and critical foresight. Today, we are deeply embedded in a fast-moving and complex environment and must be able to rely on our instincts as much as knowledge—instincts honed from knowledge gained through experience that can be intuitively accessed. Disorientation is often part of this environment and can be productive when it catalyses highly situated revisions in prevailing assumptions and practices or generates deeply creative insights. The designer as white-water kayaker requires highly developed disciplinary expertise (musculature and skills) and creative dexterity. The imagination is the undercurrent for this creative dexterity, and it fuels movement forward at a steady pace and as bursts of adrenalin. But I would suggest that there is something more that goes beyond skill and dexterity that allows one to maintain a given course, goal, or points of focus while responding skilfully and creatively to situations at hand. I would suggest that it has to do with elasticity—elasticity, as defined in Dictionary.com, is ‘the property of a substance that enables it to change its length, volume or shape in direct response to a force and to recover its original form upon the removal of the force’ is cited in an on-line dictionary, https://www. dictionary.com/browse/elasticity Adaptability is an ancestral distinction of human intelligence, but today’s distinct variations in rhythm call for something stronger: elasticity. The by-product of adaptability + acceleration, elasticity is the ability to negotiate change and innovation without letting them interfere excessively with one’s own rhythms and goals. It means being able to embrace progress, understanding how to make it our own. (Antonelli, 2008, p. 14)

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Elasticity as ‘adaptability + acceleration’ is an inspired concept because it implies shape deformation in response to external conditions without a change in material composition. Over time, the elastic object may re-form its shape permanently as it repeatedly stretches and adapts, but the molecular composition remains intact. If one makes the analogy between molecular composition and an individual’s rhythms and goals (motivations), this implies that a designer can negotiate extreme change by adapting to situations and problems at hand and can adapt more quickly over time without losing his or her individual point of view and inherent motivations. One can then extend this metaphor to imagine that significant changes in a creative individual’s goals and motivations do occur as part of the natural process of evolution, but at a different pace. This species—the designer—inhabits an environment where expertise and imagination interact to shape undercurrents of creativity. But expertise, creative dexterity, imagination, and elasticity, without agency (the ability to have an impact on the world), only suggest adaptability of the individual to this fluid and topologically complex environment. The capacity to act to shape circumstances in one’s environment is also critical. Elasticity of the individual creates greater resilience for the entire species, as an ensemble of individuals, but agency affects change. So here we bring in the term innovation. Innovation is a by-product of agency, expertise, creative dexterity, imagination, and elasticity. Whereas creativity is the use of imagination to transcend traditional ideas, processes, objects, and so on to make new ones of these, innovation is about giving these things new meanings that lead to changes in the system. Because resilience of the entire species depends on innovation, in a time of perpetual change, we need to understand that innovation is the key nutrient, as well as product, of the ecosystem.

Towards a new design education ecosystem Given the dynamic and multivalent nature of current knowledge acquisition in our evolving global society, it is very easy to become quickly dissatisfied with the rigid binary oppositions put in place by Western modernity. In particular with regard to education, the systemic polarization between teaching and research seems especially problematic. This split is based on an historical bias that distinguishes teaching, as a system to deliver rigorously vetted information, from the practice of research, as a methodical investigation of a subject or topic to develop new knowledge. The argument against the blending of teaching and research has revolved around several key assumptions: that information delivered through teaching unquestionably leads to the building of knowledge and, therefore, authoritative teaching is the most assured way to knowledge building; that the most efficient way to build knowledge from information is through a disciplinary structure; and finally, that building knowledge systematically is a necessary prerequisite to

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any new thought on a subject, implying a strictly linear sequence from teaching what is known to finding new things. I would like to suggest that the linear route is no longer effective in a time of exponential increase in information. Today, massive amounts of information can no longer be sorted into distinct disciplinary territories. Nor can they be comprehensively learned or assimilated within the traditional educational structure and time frame of degree granting, even within one given field. So, if instead of polarizations, we think of continua in which there is a sliding scale between the extremes, and where the extremes themselves are tendencies and not absolute terms, then there is greater room for adaptability to situations at hand and variability of engagement. If we break apart the traditional linear process, in which learning about what is known precedes new actions, and instead construct an idea space in which how one acts in the world can be mapped relative to how one learns about the world, and vice versa, then I believe we can envision a design concept for a new kind of educational ecosystem of learning, engagement, and impact. This idea space is scaffolded by a double continuum in which the horizontal continuum maps approaches to knowledge construction and, more specifically, the paradigm shift that is occurring as disciplines more and more spill across each other, and the vertical continuum maps ways of engaging with the contemporary context, in which new kinds of knowledge are embedded in environments of new practices. The horizontal continuum is an epistemological one, and the vertical continuum is ontological in nature.

The horizontal (epistemological) dimension approach to education Figure 8.1 conceptualizes the horizontal (epistemological) dimension approach to education. The left side of this continuum corresponds to models, methods, and mechanisms associated with 20th century learning, and the right side corresponds to how we are beginning to conceive of knowledge construction for the 21st century. A 20th century approach to education holds fast to the notion of teaching as a systematic delivery of knowledge—knowledge that is vetted and

FIGURE 8.1 

The horizontal dimension approach to education.

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sanctioned and delivered in discipline-based packages from expert teachers to students. It is education in which one learns about specific matters and how to do specific things. In contrast, 21st century learning environments are about learning that extends far beyond the classroom, which in turn promotes elasticity and agency. An assumption here is that we need to prepare for futures in which the specific things we will be doing and the specific stuff we will need to know do not yet exist. Implicated in an education for the 21st century are all sorts of new mechanisms—cultural, social, and intellectual mechanisms—that are either directly or indirectly affiliated with the digital age as a global phenomenon. Intuitively, we understand that a 21st century approach to learning needs to be radically different from an education that focuses on the accumulation of information and the simplistic transfer of culture and ideas associated with this information. But what is it more precisely? I would suggest that it begins with an epistemological shift in which learning how to learn and act (learning to be), in a highly situated manner, replaces learning about something (Thomas and Brown, 2009). And then it is about scaling this to create elasticity and agency. Scalable learning is learning that extends beyond the duration of a particular instance of learning—a class, a course, or an extended sequence of courses even— and beyond the defined content and knowledge boundaries of that particular instance. It is not discrete learning, but learning that connects with other knowledge bases and fosters easy adaptability and application to multiple instances, multiple scenarios, and multiple applications. It is the inverse of instructional teaching environments, promoting and in fact requiring students to actively and entrepreneurially engage in their own education. It is authentic learning, highly situated but extensively connected. This is a second paradigm shift in how we think about knowledge, action, interaction, and agency. It is about learning to manage a complex network of informational resources and skills so as to develop the capacity to assimilate them, internalize them, and then access them under a variety of situations— changing, adapting, and innovating in different situations and circumstances. Integrative project-based educational environments, like the design studio used in architectural education, are an excellent example of scalable learning because in order to engage the problem, the students must first decipher it and then determine what they will need to work through the problem—what skills and information they will need to move forward, including elements outside the specific domain where the work began. Agency is the ability to have an impact on the world. It is dependent on many things, including, most importantly, the ability to deeply read the context and the systems of values embedded in it and formulate actions that support or mediate change. If agency can be defined as instrumental actions—that is, actions that shape their environment as opposed to being merely shaped by it—then the fundamentals of agency are a deep understanding of that environment, a vision, and being able to make that vision operational through elasticity of response.

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Vertical (ontological) dimension/engagement of context This dimension maps ways of engaging the contemporary context—a context in which we are faced with immense horizons of new knowledge and embedded in environments of new practices. The top of this continuum has been labelled ‘accreditation’ (Figure 8.2). It is accreditation that defines the role and content of professional architectural education today. Therefore, accreditation at the top can be taken to mean that the dynamic and complex context is engaged through professional standards and practices for accreditation as architects. Experience is assimilated through these filters, new knowledge is constructed in direct relationship to existing knowledge, and new practices are built in relationship to existing and historical practices. But the term accreditation can also be used more broadly, and here I am using it to represent any core disciplinary teaching or core body of knowledge and the associated standards and practices. At the foot of this continuum is experimentation as an imperative and a practice. Here, the context is engaged through creative research and a conscious way of working that prioritizes questions over authoritative responses. This can be seen as an ontological distinction: while accreditation is about ‘I exist and act, through how I define myself ’, experimentation is about acting and existing through questions and experiencing the results of actions. Experimentation is explicitly about the framing of questions through which we learn about the things on and with which we are experimenting. Experimentation also implies that it is not merely a process of providing questions and answers, but a recursive process of repeated questioning in which partial, possible, or probable solutions are tested and then subjected to new questions with new responses, leading to

FIGURE 8.2 

Adding the vertical dimension. Engagement with context.

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new propositions, more questions, and so on. Because experimentation is recursive and because it is ongoing (fuelled by curiosity), this process of knowledge building has the potential to keep pace with its environment while simultaneously affecting this environment. Experimentation involves conducting specific pieces of work (acts or operations) for the purposes of discovering something unknown or for testing an idea, a principle, a proposition. It is the means through which creativity produces innovation. Innovation requires deeply contextualized knowledge that comes from an engagement of the context, not before engagement with the context. Knowledge that leads to innovation is built from being deeply situated in a context to know it (the kayak again), rather than applied over the context to make sense of it (the sailboat).

Accreditation + The amount of information available today, the pace at which it is coming in, and therefore the amount an individual is expected—required—to master are exponentially increasing. Despite this greater amount of information and the manner in which it keeps growing and refreshing itself, the length and time available within the academic portion of an education are not increasing. In fact, in some cases, they are decreasing. As a result, certain bodies of information are being replaced by new bodies of information, not because the former are outdated or irrelevant, but because there is just not enough time for all to be consumed under the traditional learning models. For example, looking at an architect’s technical coursework alone, 10 years ago, coursework on structures was about statics of materials. Today, we also have new materials, new methods of construction, and an entire new field that relates structures, materials, and performance to environmental concerns and sustainable responses. And this multiplication of information and concerns—subfields even—proliferates throughout the coursework from structures to history and theory, representational methods, building systems, and design methodologies, even. In addition to the widening gap between the information and skills delivered by the traditional system and those that are critical to an architect today, the press of new concerns and information creates competition within a system in which values are often not debated. It can also lead to the development of new subdisciplines. Without a critical assessment of shifts in value and new mechanisms to integrate subdisciplines, we risk both fracture and loss of purpose. This means that students must master core knowledge and skills in a different way: greater assimilation, in a more compressed manner, of an everbroader range of knowledge, while not leaving values behind. Engagement with ‘immense horizons of new knowledge’ and ‘new practices’, in any disciplinary context, requires re-envisioning the core of education. Mechanisms, means, and methods associated with a 21st century practice of learning

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FIGURE 8.3 

Moving towards ‘accreditation +’.

promote entrepreneurial learning in an environment in which knowledge and skills are built and acquired in specific contexts to achieve learning scalability, elasticity, and agency. Therefore, I propose that as one moves increasingly toward a 21st century education, accreditation incrementally and significantly improves and becomes hyperaccreditation or accreditation + (plus) (Figure 8.3).

Micro-labs/seeding a culture of innovation As we navigate toward a 21st century approach to learning that honours elasticity and agency and engages the context through inquiry and experimentation (the bottom right quadrant of our framework), we gain a greater chance of authentic innovation. An approach to education that focuses on experimentation, inquiry, and ongoing creative research, that is multidisciplinary/multitalented in scope, and that revolves around intricate questions creates a culture of innovation. A ‘culture’ of innovation implies a distribution of innovative practices throughout a particular environment. Culture as the shared beliefs, customs, practices, and social behaviour of a group and culture as the growth of biological material in a nutrient-rich medium both rely on a distribution as opposed to a concentration of activity. This culture of innovation can emerge as individuals embrace new knowledge and practices as active participants in their work. Or it can be catalysed through mechanisms that encourage individuals—and specifically individuals from different areas—to work together. Catalytic mechanisms can be heavy or light: they can involve large-scale multidisciplinary centres with major

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funding, lots of people, and clear planning. However, given the fast pace of the world today, I suggest that an environment of creativity and experimentation must include agile design micro-labs, where the organisational structure is light, emergent, networked, and elastic. A culture of innovation looks very different from a traditional research funding model. As a culture, it cannot be mandated or structured, but it can be facilitated. These micro-labs, unlike comprehensive larger units, would be easier and quicker to plan, build, and reconfigure as projects shift and move in other directions. Richly networked, they need not have dozens of participants sitting in the same room. Instead, a team of participants with the necessary skills might be distributed among several institutions and several countries and networked digitally and through ongoing academic relationships. Analogous to the way ‘process networks’ mobilise and enable highly specialized small companies to function across an extended integrated design and manufacturing process (Hagel and Brown, 2007), a network of micro-labs creates a horizontal rhizomic structure in which the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. The networked micro-lab can adapt to new questions and opportunities from outside as well as inside the network. Critically, this model values both the emergence of individual grassroots efforts and the seeding for grassroots activity. Easy to support, quick to build, and networked, such a configuration is capable of creating an impact far beyond what a single larger laboratory could achieve. These design micro-labs are part of an ethos of experimentation and can only be achieved within 21st century teaching/ learning methods. Figure 8.4 shows what the conceptual curve of the design micro-labs might look like.

FIGURE 8.4 

Design micro-labs to seed innovation.

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A culture of innovation as corridors and ecotones Much of the discussion about building business capability focuses on the value of activities that operate at the edge, where edge can mean several things—the edge of an enterprise, the edge of the processes associated with the enterprise, geographic edges, demographic edges, and so on: [a] whole set of edges that create the opportunity for capability building. (JH) The point is that by being able to listen deeply and participate on the edge, you can pick up things before anybody else picks them up, and you can use them to accelerate you own capability building. . . . My sense is that there are more edges today, and the edges themselves are becoming more important. (JSB) (Hagel & Brown, 2005) The implication is that work at the edge is unfettered and unencumbered by the inertia of core activity. It is more open to innovative forces that can reshape and transform the core, which the core will not do under its own constraints and conditions. The ‘design micro-lab’ curve is analogous to edge activity, whereas the ‘accreditation +’ curve relates to core activity. Whereas some people are most valuable working within the ‘accreditation +’ environment, others bring value working in the micro-labs-as-seeds-of-innovation environment. As the design micro-labs become more and more deeply engaged with experimentation—as their members and methods become more and more elastic with increasing dexterity and agency—the distance between the ‘accreditation +’ and the micro-lab activities increases. Instead of focusing on these as separate and unique fields of activity, discrete in their operations except for moments of productive communication (irritation), I prefer instead to focus on the opportunities for connection offered by the space in between. This space is not a void between two kinds of activity, but a space of pursuit itself. Work within this space would be different from ongoing work pursued at the edge and different from work associated with hyperdisciplinary learning, and different again from the experimental project-based work of the micro-labs. This is the ecotone. To create the ecotone, connectivity across and through it is necessary. Connectivity would begin as events in sequence, capable of transferring both information and methodologies between the two ongoing sets of activities. These connectivities act as corridors and can be manifest as many things: symposia, microsymposia, seminars, short topic-oriented design workshops, informal research presentations, or any mechanisms that move the work of the micro-labs out into the space. Such corridors would be supported by informal social networks, developed digitally (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) and physically (e.g., cafés, game rooms). Students or participants within the ‘accreditation +’ activity can be conscripted to work in the micro-labs just as nonlocal participants in the microlabs might be poached for work within the ‘accreditation +’ activity. Corridors

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are critical to the learning ecotone because they create socially embedded experiences of learning where stuff happens—between classes and outside of formal labs and research centres. The corridors seed the ecotone. The crucial point is that this in between space of pursuit and the corridors of connectivity create a condition that disrupts the traditional operational understanding of the edge-versus-core relationship. This environment depends on both and therefore honours both. To break the nonproductive resistance of the historically sanctioned core/accreditation activity, this ecotone environment must be prepared with internal mechanisms of connectivity—intellectual, social, and digital mechanisms. But beyond connectivity, corridors also have the capacity to create their own spinoff activity that distributes outward, seeding the space in between to form a fully distributed culture of creativity and innovation. In landscape systems, corridors create connectivity between different habitats. A system of corridors can lace together two distinct ecosystems or two pursuits, such that the impact of one on the other is not purely incidental: ‘Channeled movements of matter that corridor. Here, movement of objects is greater within a strip than in the surroundings’ (Forman, 1995, p. 147) The space between the two curves is intended as an inhabited space, and its inhabitation has an effect on the activity curves that were originally drawn. Accreditation + is strengthened and amplified. The capacity for experimental work is also amplified, and what was a straight arithmetic proportion now becomes a curve. As the two curves diverge, the increasing distance across the space calls for longer connective corridors; more numerous, more diverse activities and completely new mechanisms are necessary to exploit the value of the rapidly expanding area of the ecotone (Figure 8.5).

FIGURE 8.5 

The ecotone and corridors.

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A new species In addition to edge residents, [ecotones] often contain multihabitat species, those requiring or frequently using two or more habitat types. These organisms capitalize on the complementarity of resources provided by the zone between two ecosystems. . . . [Ecotones] are often biological cornucopias. (Forman, 1995, pp. 96–97) Ecotones are specifically known for being sources of evolutionary novelty (Smith et al., 1997). Here, the species of evolutionary novelty is the student. Students are capable of inhabiting both edges of the innovation culture. But more importantly, they thrive by their ability to exploit the variety of conditions within the ecotone itself. They participate in the events and mechanisms. Held together by social networking, digital (and nondigital) protocols that are prevalent and ubiquitous today, students are the biological, psychological, and sociological matter of the innovation culture. The more they participate in this interstitial zone, the more their disposition for inquiry develops in relationship to grounded skills and knowledge. They will become elastic. They will become accustomed to change and, in fact, will thrive on change, debate, friction, and risk, which are all essential to operating in the 21st century. Because students immersed in the ecotone culture and experience share the space and their work with others unlike themselves, there will be those cases in which one enters as one type of being and evolves into something else: an architect, for instance, evolves into a musician/architect; or an astronomer evolves into an astronomer/environmentalist. This new complex form of being will acquire the ability to contribute in more than one field and maintain a key presence in multiple camps.

Innovation ecotone: A concept for a sustainable innovation ecology in education and elsewhere As proposed at the outset, this chapter outlines an ecotone model as a sustainable environment within which innovation can flourish because of the diverse and rich talents it supports at two levels: sustainable innovation at the level of the system and sustainable innovation at the level of deep and highly specialized individuals. Because an ecotone is a specific type of indivisible ecosystem connecting two habitats, the capability that develops within this environment is uniquely adapted to negotiate core activity—sanctioned knowledge bases, sanctioned power bases, and so on. It is also adapted to creative experimentation that is allowed to occur in an edge environment of irrepressible curiosity and specialized talent and where learning through failures is its own agency for progress. Innovation is sustainable because it is pervasive and because it negotiates both core activities and the pull of the dynamics of change.

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Emerging ecology theory recognizes not only the impact, but also the valuable role of disturbance to evolution. Disturbance is not just an integral part of any natural system. The ‘greatest diversity occurs in landscapes large enough to contain various serial or successional stages as the result of disturbance events in the past. . . . The resulting habitat heterogeneity maintains conditions suitable for a greater number of species’ (Pulliam and Johnson, 2001 p. 59). An assumption here is that a greater diversity and richness of species contribute to the resilience of the system. The 21st century promises perpetual and persistent change. The ecotone analogy is more than a metaphor, for it is invaluable as a model that uses disturbance and change to develop a capability that can sustain itself and thrive on disturbance and change. This learning environment is intended to cultivate the education of students and to help them in developing new capacities, behaviours, and tendencies that are adaptable and elastic.

Conclusion The ecotone analogy for innovation in human eco-social systems is extensive and highly productive. Diversity of species, new species development, keystone species as system engineers, distribution of nutrients, corridors for transfer of creatures, and the idea of microhabitats (smaller habitats within larger habitats, like a tidal pool) are all intensely relevant in terms of conceiving, designing, and implementing organizational structures and mechanisms for this innovation ecology model. Each component might independently have an impact and add value to the system, but the fact that the ecotone is a system, rather than a collection of components, means that their impact scales. These discrete components, which are light, agile, and diverse in nature, are easier to bring together and resource. Risk taking is supported and sanctioned by the system, and failure of one component, or one piece of work, does not mean failure for the system as a whole. Multiple talents can be drawn out, rather than expecting talent to adapt to top-down goals. It is expected that certain individuals in the model proposed will inhabit both the adjacent edge and the ecotone. Those involved in core ‘accreditation +’ activities—faculty, teaching assistants, adjunct faculty, technical consultants of all sorts, digital and library support staff, and so on—can and will move into the spaces in between to work on certain problems and for certain events. Those individuals who work in the ‘micro-lab edge’ can also occupy the in between: faculty (tenured or not and including those from other disciplines, schools, and countries), research assistants, industry researchers and consultants, artists, filmmakers, businesspeople, and anyone with the necessary talent for the situation at hand. Because the micro-labs are experimental and multidisciplinary, when these individuals inhabit the space in between, they bring a different ethos. They add richness, diversity, hyperdisciplinary expertise, and implementation know-how.

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Because ecosystems are indivisible, they are environments where all work feeds back into the system, affecting the entire system. This means that although the innovation ecology model may be structured around discrete packages of work done by individuals and groups (classes, seminars, labs, micro-labs, micro-symposia, and so on), the actual work of the ecosystem is interconnected, interdependent, and limitless. Work done over a week, or over months, continually feeds back into the system, altering the existing and future course of the work. A complex series of exchanges adapts to emerging trends, information, and practices. Because ecotones are constantly negotiating the interaction of two habitats in tension, the activities of the two habitats come to depend upon and sustain each other. The experimental work in the ecotone (the work of inquiry) feeds back into the ‘accreditation +’ core work, keeping it relevant, informed, and moving forward at the pace of the environment around it. The ‘accreditation +’ work grounds the work of inquiry through successful practices.

Acknowledgement This chapter is based on a more comprehensive unpublished article containing numerous footnotes, ecological analogies, and exemplars.3 It owes a debt of gratitude to John Seely Brown for many conversations around the topic of learning ecologies and the landscape architecture educator, Jane Amidon, for introducing me to some of the key concepts. Additionally, I am grateful for having had the opportunity afforded by my role as Dean of the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State to conceptualize and develop this model.

Notes 1 “Creek Connections Riparian Buffers Module, Eco-Tones.” Adapted from: “The Edge of Home” in Project WILD Aquatic Council for Environmental Education, 1992, and “Field Lab: Measuring Species Diversity” by Jim Palmer, PhD, Director of Creek Connections, Box 10, Allegheny College, p. 2. 2 Conversations with Jane Amidon, Landscape Section Head at the Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University. Also referenced in ‘Entrepreneurial Environments’, a working position paper for the Landscape Section at the KSA, August 1, 2008. 3 The comprehensive unpublished article can be found at https://fourplusone.files. wordpress.com/2010/03/apj_paper_14.pdf.

References Antonelli, P. (2008). Design and the elastic mind. New York, NY: MOMA Publications. Forman, R. T. T. (1995). Land mosaics. The ecology of landscapes and regions. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Hagel, J., III, & Brown, J. S. (2005). Can your firm develop a sustainable edge? An interview with J. Hagel & J. S. Brown: Knowledge@Wharton. Retrieved from http:// knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-your-fir m-develop-a-sustainableedge-ask-john-hagel-and-john-seely-brown/

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Hagel, J., III, & Brown, J. S. (2007). Globalization and innovation: Some contrarian perspectives. Prepared for the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 25–30, p. 3. Ostroumov, S. A. (2002). New definitions of the concepts and terms ecosystem and biogeocenosis. Doklady Biological Sciences, 383, 141–143. Pulliam, H. R., & Johnson, B. R. (2001). Ecology’s new paradigm: What does it offer designers and planners? In Ecological thinking for design and planning education (pp. 58–59). Washington, DC: Island Press. Smith, T. B., Wayne, R. K., Girman, D. J., & Braford, M. W. (1997). A role for ecotones in generating rainforest biodiversity. Science Magazine, 276(5320), 1855–1857. Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2009). Why virtual worlds can matter. International Journal of Media and Learning, 1(1), 6–9.

9 ECOSYSTEM EMPOWERMENT Unlocking human potential through value creation Sasha Barab, Anna Arici, Earl Aguilera, and Kathryn Dutchin

Introduction Across many disciplines, there is often a pull towards overly simplistic, if not deterministic, models for conceptualising how growth is achieved. The various learning sciences of which we are members are no different, emerging partly in response to a dissatisfaction with a field dominated by instructional models focused on efficient content transmission (Barab et al., 1999; Callahan, 1964). Such instructional systems are designed to disseminate an expert model (e.g., how to argue persuasively or test a hypothesis) or communicate a concept on the assumption that the learner will apply the abstracted characterization to future contexts. However, although such deterministic models and processes might prove efficient for maximizing short-term learning outputs (e.g., standardised test performance or following a set of procedures), they tend to be less successful for goals that emphasise using what is being learned and often suppress the very motivations of those they are designed to empower (McDermott and Varenne, 1995). A central assumption underlying this essay is that any abstraction of ‘content’ from its ecological functioning (e.g., use within a particular situation) is likely to undermine its perceived value for any situation (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Nathan, 2012) or the learners’ belief that they are likely to do something meaningful with that which they are learning. Contrasted to this view is an ecological framework (Gibson, 1979/1986) within which an educational innovation lives in the ways that people transform the content being learned into imagined future possibilities in which they are invested (Barab & Plucker, 2002). From this perspective, learners are innovators, with the innovation emerging each time a new implementation is enacted through the ecology they create to achieve their goal. In short, we are arguing

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for an ecological view of educational innovation. For example, in our work on game-based learning, we have found that often it is the collaborative interrogation of the experience among participants that is more important in learning than what actually happens in a game (Barab and Arici, 2017). In this model of an ecosystem for action and learning, although technology might be a necessary component of an innovation, it is insufficient to enable the necessary conditions for learners to thrive. This is not meant to imply that designers should forgo their responsibility for outcome achievement. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that growth, when treated as a process of creating value, grounded in community-owned meaning, is a distributed accomplishment spread across the designed innovation, an engaged learner, a connected community, and a world in which the value-creation performance has value. Fidelity, from this perspective, is less about adherence to an expert or designer’s vision and more about how learners leverage a design in their own ways to accomplish goals that matter to them in contexts that have meaning and relevance. In short, we are arguing for an ecological view of educational innovation. For example, in our work on game-based learning, we have found that often it is the collaborative interrogation of the experience among participants that is more important in learning than what actually happens in a game (Barab and Arici, 2017). In this model of an ecosystem for action and learning, although technology might be a necessary component of an innovation, it is insufficient to enable the necessary conditions for learners to thrive. This is not meant to imply that designers should forgo their responsibility for outcome achievement. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that growth, when treated as a value grounded in community-owned meaning, is a distributed accomplishment spread across the designed innovation, an engaged learner, a connected community, and a world in which the performance has value. Fidelity, from this perspective, is less about adherence to a designer’s vision and more about how learners leverage a design in their own ways to accomplish goals that matter to them. The more we treat unlocking human potential as a process of transmitting abstracted concepts within educational ecosystems and contexts solely for that purpose, the more we undermine the value of that which is being learned and, ultimately, the more we run the risk of undermining the very motivations of those we seek to empower. Below, we advance a set of alternative assumptions as to how our model differs from the way people traditionally think about the process of unlocking growth and impact: • • •

Growth as value creation Design as structured invitation Implementation as ecosystem empowerment

Collectively, these principles provide a framework for initiatives focused on unlocking human potential, one that is ecological (grounded in the

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implementation ecosystem) and empowering (co-created by learners). In this chapter, we describe an ecological framework that treats unlocking human potential as a process involving engaged and purposeful human beings within supportive ecosystems where success is seen in the personal value they envision and attempt to create in the world.

Growth as value creation When we separate content from context, we introduce a problematic divide between what something is and what it does, leading to artificial goals where the meaning lies primarily in its artificial exchange value for a grade, and not in the real-world use value (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Bruner, 2002; D’Amato, 1992; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Quite problematically, human capacity is treated as a commodity that, in the form of knowledge, can be converted into a textbook chapter, a professorial lecture, or an online module, whichever is most efficient for transmitting the content into the mind of a passive learner (Barab et al., 1999; Dewey, 1963). The assumption is that, at some future point, learners will convert their acquired understanding into a capacity that will respond to future situations. However, after decades of research on how people learn, converting ‘acquired content’ to meaningful application is the exception and not the norm (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 2000). Instead, countless studies have demonstrated what the philosopher Alfred Whitehead (1929) coined as the ‘inert knowledge’ problem, in which people who clearly know something in a formal learning situation do not apply it in a real-world situation, even where it is relevant. More generally, any effort intended to unlock human potential that fails to recruit the goals and aspirations of those doing the learning, or the places in which these can be relevant, will necessarily fall short. We need a new metaphor for learning to guide our endeavours, to bring our thinking out of the industrial era and into the age of innovation, and to place learning in contexts where the performance of the learner matters. This ecological perspective needs to encompass modern learning needs and to be use inspired, learner focused, and embedded in an ecosystem that is valued by the learner and that co-creates value within the learning context. We are arguing for an ecological framework in which growth involves more than acquiring a particular skill or tool, but actually involves creating value in the world. In other words, learning is a lived process of co-creation through which concepts are performed and therefore become manifest within the particular situation, as opposed to static truths that are simply consumed. Value creation, as being argued here, involves learners interpreting the relevance of a particular idea to their local context and then doing the integration work to make it fit. This adaptation to local fit is not written on the surface of the concept or idea but involves envisioning the potential value of the idea to

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what is being learned and how it could operate in the local context in a way that realises a locally envisioned outcome. So, for example, in our work around the development of a connected growth platform implemented with undergraduate college students, students first connect with stories from others in which they shared how they leveraged principles of good resumé design to draw on their experiences and co-create new meaning such that they had a convincing resumé. In fact, the challenges were less about understanding what makes a good resumé and more about how to represent experiences from which one can produce a resumé that articulates capacity to realise a desired future. This is especially relevant to a world in which many of the jobs that student will occupy do not yet exist. At some point, the to-be-changed individual needs to become the change agent, taking ownership and co-creating value in situ with that which they are learning. Drawing on the notion of anticipatory governance (see Barben, Fisher, Selin, & Guston, 2008; Guston, 2014; Sarewitz, 2011), we view learning as involving the following three components: engagement (becoming invested in application, emotional involvement, or commitment), foresight (imagining plausible outcomes, envisioning possible futures) and commitment to the process of integration (applying ideas to achieve goals, adapting to local circumstances) as one seeks to realise a desired possibility. Learning here becomes an active process, in which one is invested in achieving possible outcomes and then working to integrate what is being learned with work in the world so as to achieve the desired state. To create such an investment within an agentic human being, we need an increased emphasis on why content matters, where it matters, and for whom it matters. Such an ecological perspective entails a focus on learners’ engagement in the world, as they leverage that which they are learning to navigating the in situ challenges of realising their goals in their world.

Design as structured invitation Over the past decade, we have seen a shift in how we think about products, brands, and the ways innovations are engaged by users, with an emphasis on what people want to accomplish with them rather than what they are (Christensen et al., 2016; Seidman, 2007). For example, central to the jobs-to-be-done literature is the idea that customers hire innovations to make progress on relevant goals in particular situations. The focus is less about what is the to-be-learned content or even what it can do, but more on what learners can and want to do with the content. We believe that although learners hiring textbooks to pass a test is a hire, it is one that has little meaning-making or value-creation opportunity. How would it change our learning systems or even our notion of content if we treated educational programmes not as bounded products or self-sufficient substances, but instead as services designed to enable learners to realise goals that were important to them? Also, when in the context of ecological learning environments, the job is largely unknown, which the learner has not even realised

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they want or with which they could meaningfully engage. So, in a very real way, educators are setting out an aspirational goal and the leveraging of the content to make progress towards that goal. Positioned within this framework, the design challenge is about structuring the invitation as a service that learners perceive as engaging and relevant and then ensuring they have the resources, supportive peers, and necessary feedback such that they can create personally and socially relevant value. We need learning environments that invite, excite, and inspire learners, cultivating through experience a contextualised understanding as to how they could apply that which is being learned. Any effort intended to unlock human potential that is predicated on a content-transmission idea will prove ineffective and ultimately limiting because it does not involve the most powerful component of any learning and engagement system—a motivated individual. In fact, we often hear how youth today are unmotivated and how we need to find alternative ways of motivating them to learn—with gaming touted as a methodology for inducing individuals into learning. In contrast, we believe the problem is not one of motivation, but rather a release problem, in that learners are not investing themselves because they do not appreciate the value of that which they are learning. When it comes to motivating human beings, most frameworks assume a compliance model of learning focused on rewarding content consumption, rather than inviting and engaging learners into their own becoming and doing so in the context of others. To shift towards a future where all of us have (and are likely to realise our) opportunity to create value, we need a new framework for thinking about growth—one that is designed to recognise, in each of us, a potential to thrive (Figure 9.1). Specifically, our thinking involves three related aspects: • • •

Inviting learners to imagine goals and pursue outcomes that matter to them Providing the necessary resources and agency to enable success in one’s pursuit Supporting their release as they create personally meaningful value in the world

FIGURE 9.1 

Invitational framework for designs focused on real-world value creation.

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At the core of this methodology is the belief that unlocking human potential begins with an invitation that engages imagination and foresight, creating emotional connections with real-world possibilities that their learning and its application have the potential to yield. Fundamentally, learners need to want to succeed and believe they can succeed. It is essential that the invitational stage involves some notion of learners’ envisioning where and how they can create value, and then the designer must take some responsibility for ensuring that learners are likely to be successful if they invest themselves. Specifically, our thinking involves three related aspects: • • •

Invite—inspiring learners to connect with possibility, create aspirational goals, and develop a commitment to create value in the world Enable—co-creating an ecology through which learners develop the necessary thinking, relationships, and supports in order to realise their goals Release—reflexively applying that which they are learning to create, iterate, and reflect on the value that they are creating in a particular context

At the core of this methodology is the belief that unlocking human potential takes place within an ecology, which involves recruiting imagination and foresight to establish emotional connections with real-world possibilities that the learning and its application have the potential to yield—and that the learner wants to achieve. It is essential that the invitational stage involves some notion of learners envisioning where and how they can create value, even developing the emotional connection and confidence to achieve the anticipated state, with the designer taking partial responsibility for arranging learning situations so that learners are likely to be successful if they invest something of themselves. Further, it necessitates that the implementation ecology cultivates the co-creation of a skillset and supportive community necessary for the learner to accomplish something meaningful. The key here is that the invite stage builds a broader framework of possibility, even as the learners themselves are still advancing their ability to realise the outcome. It is here that learners develop a vision about the value of what they are learning, about what they could do with it, and about who they might become. When it comes to learning, students and teachers need to feel emotionally connected to the ideas and skills they are building—people learn better when they are interested, curious, passionate, and engaged, and when they feel safe, welcomed, and valued (Rivers et al., 2012; Immordino-Yang and Damasio, 2007; Immordino-Yang & Faeth, 2010; Cozolino, 2014). If the invitation is successful, learners link the enabling content to use-focused goals, thereby increasing their appreciation for that which they are learning. Although there is a time for telling (Goldstone & Son, 2005), it is important that this happens in the context of invested learners who care about why they are learning and with a vision for its impact in their lives.

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Engagement, foresight, and a commitment to integration on the part of the learner cannot be assigned, mandated, or determined. Instead, learners can be invited, enabled, and supported through thoughtful design, so as to help to develop inspired and capable individuals. Even formal enabling pathways need be positioned in terms of releases that are relevant to the world, accessible to the learner, and particularly flexible such that they can be adapted to local ecosystem needs. In a real way, learners themselves must create the possibilities, make the connections, and bring what is being learned to potential contexts of use. When individuals learn in the service of an intention they own and value, it is the personally meaningful release that motivates and gives meaning to the learning. From the designer perspective, it is about inviting learners into a sense of possibility, the designer providing skills and support to help learners in this way, and establishing ecosystems through which there exists the necessary interpretive space for learners to create meaningful outcomes.

Implementation as ecosystem integration An ecological perspective does not separate the designed components or content being learned from the ecosystem with which they are associated. Instead, it treats the innovation as a component of a distributed system involving the designed product, engaged individuals or learners, skilled facilitators or other supports, and an enabling context. In this ecological model, the innovation lives in the interaction as a shared accomplishment and is thus re-created each time it is conducted, so as to cultivate an interpretive space through which meaning is created. More generally, the implementation itself is an innovative act through which a transformative potential is anticipated within a particular context, enabled through ecosystem integration, toward goals that matter to the learner (Figure 9.2). It is this combination of elements, driven towards locally owned value creation, that compose a fruitful ecology through which learners co-create meaning and value. So, for example, as an undergraduate in our work struggles with what are elements of a resumé, she simultaneously engages her world of opportunity, seeking internship experiences that enact possibilities that can become elements of her own resumé and allow her to realise a desired future. Educational engineering for such empowerment requires that design be brought into an enabling ecosystem to engage, imagine, amplify, and manifest value creation. Although it is easier to disseminate a decontextualized definition, if we want empowered learners, we have to enable the local ecosystem. Embracing an ecosystem framework is a commitment to unlock, amplify, and cultivate meaning and value creation as a shared accomplishment, enabled through our designs but realised in the undergoing of performance (Ingold, 2014). In a very real way, each learner must become an innovator, imagining his or her value creation and working to integrate that which is being learned to achieve his or her goals. When adopting such an empowered framework, one needs to look beyond the designed invitation and more to the use context to find the learning catalysts.

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FIGURE 9.2 

Empowered ecosystem framework of innovation.

We and others have found that good design with weak integration is not very empowering or effective (Barab and Arici, 2017). An ecological framework treats growth as a shared accomplishment, with the designed innovation being one component that works in partnership with an empowered learner, an invested community, an engaged facilitator, and an enabling environment focused on the achievement of particular outcomes that are locally realised (Figure 9.1, further elaborated later). At the core of such a framework are engaged individuals becoming innovators in their own right, not passive receivers, as they develop the capacity to envision new possibilities and integrate components of the innovation (e.g., technologies, concepts, expert models, and other perspectives) as tools to realise goals in which those individuals are invested. Viewing impact as a shared accomplishment, supported by designers of the innovation, but ultimately realised in partnership with learners in relation to their ecosystem needs and possibilities, is, arguably, a radical approach. Any educational innovation, to be truly transformative, must light interest and passion within learners so that they choose to re-create its potential in their local context. In this sense, and consistent with an ecological framework, the learning potential lies not in the innovation per se, but in what happens with and around the innovation. Importantly, the incorporation of an ecological framework, which locates transformative outcomes outside the boundaries of a designed technology, should not be taken as an indictment of the limits of design. In fact, we research video games specifically because they are interactive, participatory, and deeply

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engaging, allowing even young children to step into real-world roles in which they confront problems, make meaningful choices, and explore the consequences of these choices beyond the game worlds themselves (Barab and Arici, 2017). In games for impact, or any other such innovation, many designers are willing to relegate emancipatory powers to technologies, as opposed to seeing the innovation as residing in the head, hands, and hearts of those individuals who engage, adapt, and integrate the ideas bound up in the innovation. There is often a naïve assumption that if the structure and value of the content are clearly defined, learners will similarly value the applied connections and make the necessary adaptations in situations where it is relevant. Even more problematic is the assumption that we can ultimately design a ‘technological fix’ (Sarewitz and Nelson, 2008) so as to produce a solution for others. In contrast, what is being advanced in this chapter is an ecological reformulation of learning, of innovation, and of optimising for impact. For example, if the focus of the innovation is on healthy lifestyles, a smart technological device can remind the player to stand up or to exercise more or even provide feedback on one’s diet. One could even employ gamification techniques to motivate and reward positive behaviours or punish undesirable behaviours, and this application is appearing to meet with some success. However, none of these product-centric techniques are likely to lead to sustainable change unless there is a fundamental shift in which the player becomes invested in the outcome, envisions game metrics as supporting her or his goal realisation, and is integrated to amplify an empowered ecosystem (Toyama, 2015).

ThriveCast: Illustrative example of an empowered ecosystem As an example of an educational design informed by theory, we describe the ThriveCast platform. What began as a gamified learning management system involving fictional characters and content acquisition activities slowly transformed into what we now describe as a connected growth platform. The current design uses an invitational methodology focused on connecting users with real-world opportunities and people (Figure 9.3, right screenshot). In this case, to thrive is to create value, using what is being learned to create an occasion associated with progress in the particular growth area. So, for example, if one is learning about ‘agile design methodologies’, the goal is to support learners to create moments where they are using customer feedback to develop a particular design. Or, in the case of emotional wellness, creating a personal boundary within an unhealthy relationship would be a demonstration of a ‘Setting Healthy Boundaries’ module, with using ‘I’ statements potentially being an enabling skill. The important point here is that growth activities are positioned as resources to make progress in an identified real-life context where the learner is attempting to create value. In this framing, learners’ lived stories are privileged as the valued achievement of the growth opportunity. Grounded in the ‘invite, enable, release’ methodology

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FIGURE 9.3 

ThriveCast screenshot of user feed, story connection, and thrive module.

discussed earlier, we designed the growth opportunities in the platform to have the following components •

•

•

Invite—Storied achievements from one member are made available in the Connect section to create applied visions of possibility for other members, keeping real-world application opportunities current and locally relevant. Enable—Grow activities are designed to support players in developing the necessary skills so that they understand and are likely to succeed in the creation of their desired release. Release—Armed with an appreciation of what others have done and having developed their related skills, learners are encouraged to engage a valuecreation opportunity in their lives and even share it to inspire others, which becomes a model to which others can connect.

At its core, the focus is to engage players in value creation, first connecting to peer stories and then growing relevant skills so that the learners can apply what has been learnt to create their own real-world story that meets the purpose of the module. After that, users can share their reflection of the experience as a thrive story, which is first encountered by others through a process of peer review and feedback. If two users accept the work as addressing the application criteria, then the author has an opportunity to make her or his story public, becoming available to inspire others as they engage the Connect stage. This user flow is consistent with other discussions on the value of connected learning (Ito et al., 2009, 2013) and is consistent with a methodology in which a key value is what members

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create and contribute in contrast to what the design team creates. We have found that when one engages an invite–enable–release methodology with the goal of supporting co-created value, then it is essential to cultivate community connection in which one member’s release provides an invitation or opportunity for another member. Given our commitment to connected growth, an important design principle was that users go beyond creating value for themselves and actively contribute back to the community, engaging other users’ ideas and continuing the conversation. In addition to completing the modules in this growth platform, members have the opportunity to support the growth of others by reviewing submitted stories, commenting on published stories, and making one’s accepted story available to others for connecting, and, in this way, cultivating a living ecosystem that gains value over time as more people share their value-creation experiences. Further, a user-aware feed pulls across all available modules to identify stories that might be of interest, relevant growth opportunities, or entire modules that are relevant based on current user progress (see left screen, Figure 9.3). One user can publish his or her accepted work to inspire another user, increasing the work’s relevance to both parties. In this way, community-produced stories inspire choice, as opposed to participation simply being driven by a designed ‘channel’. In contrast to a consumption-focused learning system, a growth platform based on an invite, enable, and release framework with an emphasis on value creation by learners begins with understanding the relevant progress (valuecreation occasions) that successful members make (Christensen et al., 2016). In other words, rather than focusing on the content that we want people to learn, the emphasis is on what progress people want to make. In designing the content itself, ecosystem integration starts with us conducting interviews to uncover the desired progress in a particular area. When conducting an interview, one is not simply identifying occasions where people made progress in the particular area, but also identifying resources they hired to make progress. For example, when learning about how to create a resumé, many of those we interviewed hired friends or drew on websites. ThriveCast currently supports multiple collections of opportunities focused on diverse content areas (e.g., personal wellness, an innovator’s journey, career exploration, digital literacies), with each one having numerous growth modules. The Architecting My Futures offering, as an example, has 10 modules identified as relevant to supporting undergraduate growth in career development (Figure 9.4). By engaging in an ecological design process in which the content is grounded in goals and experiences that users find relevant and useful, as opposed to abstract content often arranged in textbooks, we are front-loading ecosystem integration in relation to community-valued impact. From here, the next step involves translating the interview data about occasions where users have made progress, as well as concepts and resources they found useful, into growth activities. So, for example, when building a collection designed to support career development, we ended up creating 10 jobs-to-be-done (such as failing forward, exploring curiosity,

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FIGURE 9.4 

Ten thrive modules developed for the architecting my future library.

validating moments, and personal brand definition), which were transformed into growth invitations and application criteria that could be engaged to guide learners in their value-creation moments. For the Professional Brand module, we use the following criteria to frame the value-creation invitation: •

•

Good or bad, we all have some kind of reputation already. Reflect on the brand you have been building, even exploring your digital footprint to find and minimise any negative online content and maximise all your good press. Articulate what you want your professional brand to be like, and then curate a professional identity and footprint to match (for instance, creating resources like a LinkedIn profile, professional webpage, career-related Twitter feed).

We used these criteria to examine interviewee stories and to imagine the types of value-creation opportunities our future participants might engage. From here, activities were built, including how to cultivate a useful digital footprint, what is brand, and the importance of connecting specifics to one’s passions. There are multiple ways to think about ecosystem integration when one adopts a platform methodology in which the users are both consumers and producers of value (Parker, Van Alstyne, and Choudary, 2016). First, introducing an innovation should be done in a manner that is integrated into the goals of the learner and the broader ecosystem in which it is being used. So, for example,

FIGURE 9.5 

ThriveCast feed with illustration of modes available as feed cards.

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when ThriveCast is integrated in a class, it is essential that it becomes a tool that the teacher and students view as useful to achieving goals they value. In the jobsto-be-done language, the teacher and students should be hiring the innovation to achieve goals that they value. While this can be assigned in some situations, the ultimate goal of an invitational framing is that users are developing authentic motives that are driving participation. Even in those cases where participation is assigned, we have integrated a user-aware feed intended to queue up personally and socially relevant invitations of what the learner might do next, rather than channelling them through the designer’s funnel. A user-aware feed leverages a know-and-match algorithm that, over time, becomes more effective at connecting people to people and to ‘modes of experience’ (connect, grow, share, comment, review, apply, etc.) that are relevant to them (Figure 9.5). Having different ways or modes of interacting with content allows learners to engage with the content in ways that they find meaningful. Importantly, learner application stories of their value creation serve as core content with community feedback and perceived relevance determining what should count for which users. So, although individuals might be consumers learning from a peer in one moment, they are sharing their experience and insight in the next—switching modes based on their achievement. These stories are ecological in the deepest meaning of the word, as they represent local instantiations of core ideas in that they illuminate a particular application for a particular user. When we review data about which feed items serve as the most compelling invitations, it is often stories from users who describe their experience rich in detail as opposed to abstract characterisations of how someone might use the content. In fact, in one implementation we found that our designer-produced stories containing high-value examples tended to get few user comments, whereas real user stories that illuminate personal struggle received significantly more comments.

Conclusions An ecological educational worldview is all about enabling people to utilise more of their potential to create something they value. A central focus of this chapter is to articulate a model for unlocking human potential, one that is focused on empowering people to create in areas of life that are important to them, rather than the more common focus on designing systems that allow people to efficiently consume pre-packaged value created by experts. When one is interested in helping people create value, content is less important than risk taking and being able to inspire a learner willing to use content to accomplish new possibilities in and for particular situations. In the ecological empowerment framework being advanced here, the role of the innovation is to unlock, cultivate, and amplify potential of the individual in a situation, with the innovation being what the learner does with what is being learned—not simply what was designed for the learner. From this perspective, innovations designed to support growth are best thought of as value-creation invitations rather than interventions, and at

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their best, they encourage and facilitate learners to create their own ecologies for creating value. We believe that unlocking human potential is not solely the responsibility of those designing innovations, nor is it the sole responsibility of learners and the ecosystems they inhabit to bootstrap their way up. Designers have an exciting opportunity to harness powerful ideas and the affordances of platform technologies to create innovations that facilitate ecological flourishing (i.e., that enable learners and the ecosystem as a whole to flourish). Importantly, one must keep in mind that growth is not a force that an individual or an innovation causes within another, but is a potential realised in partnership with those being impacted who ultimately must own, adapt, and advance. In other words, growth and impact are invitational and nonlinear phenomena, involving a joint accomplishment, with the designed intervention providing one piece of the initial conditions through which the empowered ecosystem can realise more advanced ways of being and becoming. The challenge is in how our designs facilitate the sharing of agency and the co-creation of meaning, allowing participants to co-determine structure and impact with the implementation ecosystem. The core innovation, to be truly transformative, must ignite interest and passion, connecting with and amplifying what is (or could be) happening in the local ecosystem. Beyond consuming content, we need to emphasise personal connection and value creation with and within the local ecosystem and involving trusted peers as an essential resource in supporting growth. The power of educational content lives less in the abstracted structures described in a textbook or professorial lecture and more in the emotional response of learners to envision a possibility and then invest themselves in it—a possibility that is best realised and supported through an enabling ecology. The true innovator is the student who is perceiving value and acting to integrate ideas to realise such value, not the designer’s or professor’s articulation of potential value. The professor’s role is to open up the possibility space and encourage and support learners to use that which is being learned in goals that they care about. Imagine an educational system that privileges local value creation, that empowers communities to identify learning priorities and local champions, and then assembles learners to work on goals that matter to them. Such a framework begins with understanding what communities and individual learners want to learn and achieve and what local strengths can be tapped into and amplified. Content is then created to enable learners to achieve desired goals in the local ecosystem. It is important to remember that humans are agentic beings with free will who must be empowered to be the architects of their own learning ecologies, creating and owning the goals and outcomes they want to achieve. This framework stands in stark contrast to current models of education that focus on transmitting abstracted content through classroom lectures with the expectation that, at some point in the future, learners will be able to apply what they learned in other contexts of use. In contrast, an ecological framework relates to a particular ecosystem and content is introduced and valued based on its relevance to meeting the needs and achieving the goals of the learner within the particular ecosystem.

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References Barab, S. A., & Arici, A. (2017). Producing sustainable and scaled impact: A human-centric framework. In M. Y. Young & S. T. Slota (Eds.), Exploding the castle: Rethinking how video games & game mechanics can shape the future of education (pp. 139–177). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Barab, S. A., Cherkes-Julkowski, M., Swenson, R., Garrett, S., Shaw, R. E., & Young, M. (1999). Principles of self-organization: Ecologizing the learner-facilitator system. The Journal of The Learning Sciences, 8(3–4), 349–390. Barab, S. A., & Plucker, J. A. (2002). Smart people or smart contexts? Cognition, ability, and talent development in an age of situated approaches to knowing and learning. Educational Psychologist, 37(3), 165–182. Barben, D., Fisher, E., Selin, C., & Guston, D. H. (2008). 38 Anticipatory Governance of Nanotechnology: Foresight, Engagement, and Integration. The handbook of science and technology studies, 979. Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Bruner, J. (2002). Making stories: Law, literature, life. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Callahan, R. E. (1964). Education and the cult of efficiency. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Christensen, C., Duncan, D. S., Dillon, K., & Hall, T. (2016). Competing against luck: The story of innovation and customer choice. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers. Cozolino, L. (2014). The neuroscience of human relationships: Attachment and the developing social brain. New York, NY: WW Norton & Company. D’Amato, J. (1992). Resistance and compliance in minority classrooms. In E. Jacob & C. Jordan (Eds.), Minority education: Anthropological perspectives (pp. 181–207). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Dewey, J. (1963). Experience & education. New York, NY: Collier MacMillan. (Original work published in 1938.) Gibson, J. J. (1979/1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Goldstone, R. L., & Son, J.Y. (2005). The transfer of scientific principles using concrete and idealised simulations. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 14(1), 69–110. Guston, D. H. (2014). Understanding ‘anticipatory governance’. Social Studies of Science, 44(2), 218–242. Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. In D. A. Sousa (Ed.), Mind, brain, and education (pp. 3–10). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press. Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Faeth, M. (2010). The role of emotion and skilled intuition in learning. In D. A. Sousa (Ed.), Mind, brain, and education (pp. 69–83). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press. Ingold, T. (2014). The creativity of undergoing. Pragmatics & Cognition, 22(1), 124–139. Ito, M., Horst, H. A., Bittanti, M., Stephenson, B. H., Lange, P. G., Pascoe, C. J., … Martínez, K. Z. (2009). Living and learning with new media: Summary of findings from the Digital Youth Project. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. McDermott, R. (2001). The acquisition of a child by a learning disability. In J. Collins & D. Cook (Eds.), Understanding learning: Influences and outcomes (pp. 60–70). London, United Kingdom: Paul Chapman Press. McDermott, R., & Varenne, H. (1995). Culture as disability. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 26(3), 324–348.

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Nathan, M. J. (2012). Rethinking formalisms in formal education. Educational Psychologist, 47(2), 125–148. Rivers, S. E., Brackett, M. A., Reyes, M. R., Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D. R., & Salovey, P. (2012). Measuring emotional intelligence in early adolescence with the MSCEIT-YV: Psychometric properties and relationship with academic performance and psychosocial functioning. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 30(4), 344–366. Sarewitz, D. (2011) Anticipatory governance of emerging technologies. In G. E. Marchant, B. R. Allenby, & J. R. Herkert (Eds), The growing gap between emerging technologies and legalethical oversight:The pacing problem (pp. 95–106). New York, NY: Springer. Sarewitz, D., & Nelson, R. (2008). Three rules for technological fixes. Nature, 456(7224), 871–872. Seidman, D. (2007). How: Why how we do anything means everything . . . in business (and in life). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Toyama, K. (2015). Geek heresy: Rescuing social change from the cult of technology. New York, NY: PublicAffairs. Whitehead, A. N. (1929). The aims of education and other essays. New York: MacMillan.

10 BUILDING DOCTORAL ECOLOGIES AND ECOLOGICAL CURRICULA Sprawling spaces for learning in researcher education Søren S.E. Bengtsen

Introduction On a global scale, research and researchers are viewed increasingly as critical to social and economic competitiveness and societal health (Andres et al., 2015). Over the past quarter of a century, not only higher education, but also the education of future researchers, principally through doctoral education, has moved from its seclusion within the disciplines at universities and into the political and institutional limelight. Because of the increasing number of policy reports linking research to wider societal development and growth, global drivers such as massification, professionalisation, and quality assurance agendas are influencing and shaping the work of graduate schools within universities across the globe (Andres et al., 2015; Gokhberg, Shamtko, and Auriol, 2016). However, despite increased policy focus on the wider societal relevance of researcher education, it has so far proved difficult to fully integrate societal contexts and domains into the highly disciplinary specialized doctoral education programmes (Acker and Haque, 2017). This increased political and societal focus and involvement with doctoral education creates what Burford (2018) terms a ‘cruel optimism’, where doctoral students and their supervisors are being encouraged by graduate schools to complete in a restricted time frame due to the demand for researchers within the society, but in reality, employment prospects for researchers are poor. On the institutional level, we see that graduate schools respond with a variety of quality assurance initiatives such as generic PhD courses on entrepreneurial approaches to research, guides about how to take individual ownership of the PhD process, and obligatory courses in supervision for new doctoral supervisors. However, as Kelly (2017) points out, these added pressures and expectations of doctoral education do not create a stronger cohesion in the doctoral curriculum but generate an increasing sense of a ‘schizophrenic’ PhD

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‘characterized by fragmentation . . . and pulled in different directions’ (p. 59). Also, we see graduate schools increasing in size and complexity, with PhD programmes spanning several disciplines and fields of research. For doctoral students, and sometimes their supervisors too, this generates a sense of ‘fog’ (Cherry, 2012) and ‘darkness’ (Bengtsen, 2016a; Bengtsen and Barnett, 2017a), where the gaps in communication and educational cohesion increase for those doctoral students who lack a foundation and firm platform to which to relate. As Wisker and Robinson (2012) have pointed out, this even may result in doctoral students becoming lost and ‘orphaned’ in the system that was set up and enlarged to support and protect them. Within the disciplines, there have been national and regional initiatives to counter such fragmentation of doctoral programmes, as seen in the strengthening of research environments and cultures, and the ‘formation of scholars’ agenda (Walker et al., 2008). Such a focus on informal education and situated learning draws heavily from Lave and Wengers’s work on communities of practice as well as Bourdieu’s work on research culture, capital, and habitus (Gardner and Mendoza, 2010). However, despite the well-meaning initiatives, the strengthening of the doctoral curriculum from within the core of the disciplines themselves has not led to a societally integrated doctoral curriculum and has instead led to conflicts within the disciplines themselves and conflicts between the disciplines and the managerial levels of the graduate schools and units of educational developers (Pearson and Brew, 2002; Manathunga, 2005; Barnacle, Schmidt, and Cuthbert, 2019). Instead of collaborating on interdisciplinary research projects, the disciplines find themselves in an infight over faculty and institutional funding schemes, where rivalry between research programmes even within the same faculty is not uncommon. Also, we see that quality assurance initiatives initiated by a graduate school directorial board, such as mandatory pedagogical courses for doctoral supervisors, are met with scepticism and resistance by the doctoral supervisors themselves. Such clashes within the universities, on the one hand, and between the university and its external stakeholders, on the other hand, have led researchers to call for more ‘ecological’ approaches, where the doctoral curriculum integrates and builds synergies between the various claims that external stakeholders and stakeholders within the universities themselves may have on doctoral education. Wright (2016) has mentioned that this requires a change from the ‘toxic mingling’ between the parties involved, where they each prey on each other in order to gain more control over research and researcher education, towards processes of ‘co-evolution’ (p. 65). For Barnett (2018), the ecological curriculum consists in ways of enticing ‘the student into venturing across the ecosphere of the university’ (p. 114). This ecosphere includes an assemblage of external stakeholders and partners, including the wider societal and cultural lifeworld domains as well. What is important for Barnett is that students do not merely address and speak towards a wider societal audience, but speak, think, and research into, together with, and from

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such contexts and domains. The concept of the ecological curriculum is closely connected to the concept of the lifewide curriculum ( Jackson, 2011a, 2011b; Barnett, 2011). The meaning of lifewide curriculum is that learning is not limited to strictly formalized settings behind the walls of institutions. Learning is organic in the sense that it grows from activities, practices, and experiences both within and beyond the institutional domain, and ecologies for learning are possible in ways often not acknowledged and recognised by institutional perceptions and practices of learning. In this chapter, I shall flesh out more fully the specific meanings of such an ecological curriculum for doctoral education and the PhD degree. I shall do this by focusing on three influential current approaches to doctoral education and learning. Firstly, I shall present and discuss the understanding of ‘third spaces’ learning within doctoral education, where doctoral students may find their own voice and academic identity in what are typically seen as extra-curricular and extra-institutional learning spaces. This first perspective is about ecological learning. Secondly, I shall focus on how doctoral students activate and project this newfound academic identity into societal arenas through their ‘academic citizenship’. This second perspective is about ecological dwelling. Finally, I shall discuss the implications for not only doctoral engagement, but also a cultural leadership dimension to the ecological curriculum within researcher education. This third perspective is about ecological upheaval.

Third spaces as arenas for ecological learning Doctoral education is often closely connected with the university as an institutional space and with the highly specialized knowledge creation that is deeply embedded within the core disciplines. However, the learning processes and the academic becoming of doctoral students span multiple societal, cultural, and lifeworld domains. This is seen in the institutions, where doctoral students do not rely solely on their formally designated supervisors and advisors for help and support in times of academic strain or crisis, but they draw on a variety of extra-curricular actors such as guardian supervisors, translators, administrators, peers, academic friends, professional networks, and family (Wisker, Robinson, and Bengtsen, 2017). We tend to forget the wider underlying ecological root system from where doctoral students sap energy and nutrition that goes into the research work and the PhD dissertation. We often forget and overlook that doctoral students are also ‘parents, siblings, daughters/sons, and friends; they have other interests to pursue, health and finance to maintain, and domestic lives to run’ (Hopwood et al., 2011, p. 218). The PhD is organic, and it takes root in a soil and a wider existential, societal, and cultural terrain. Seeing the PhD and doctoral learning narrowly as a direct result of experiments and studies undertaken in the laboratory, the study cells of the library, or participation in research seminars and PhD courses is too limited. Doctoral

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education may aptly be described as a series of ‘nested contexts’ (McAlpine and Norton, 2006). In an ecological understanding of doctoral education and the PhD, the perspective must be stretched beyond the institutional arena and understood as a learning ‘“penumbra”, a light around the main activity, moving as light can around a person or object, from the “lightside” (overt, positive, acknowledged) to the “darkside” (understood here only as covert, and often unacknowledged)’ (Wisker et al., 2017, p. 528). The deeper ontological underpinnings of doctoral education and the PhD reveal an ecological ‘“sprawl” as an alternative guiding metaphor for doctoral supervision’, which in this context should not be understood as a negative or uncontrollable chaotic force, but should be understood as ‘a non-linear and plastic understanding of learning spaces, not limited to formal and informal settings, but including [what may be termed] non-formal spaces’ (Bengtsen, 2016b, p. 59). Learning in nonformal spaces may be intentional, such as trying to master a new language, just as they may be unintentional, such as learning about a new culture by exposing oneself to it through various social interactions. Ecological learning in doctoral education is about acknowledging and valuing these nonformal arenas and activities as real, actual, and constructive spaces for development and growth and being able to understand how such spaces interact with formal and informal learning spaces. The formal learning spaces, which are here associated with ‘first spaces’ for learning (Table 10.1) include formalized designated learning tasks such as designing and carrying out the research project and field work, dissertation writing, and completing the mandatory PhD courses (if any). Thus, carrying out tasks and engaging in the formal doctoral curriculum would sit within this first space. Here, the feedback and support typically come from formally assigned supervisors and advisors, PhD administrators, teachers on PhD courses, and other official members of the graduate school. The informal learning spaces, which are here associated with ‘second spaces’ for learning (Table 10.1), include becoming socialised into the wider research environment of the department and understanding the academic norms and research methods of the discipline. Where you could say that the formal learning spaces relate to the research structure of the PhD, the informal learning spaces relate to the research culture of the PhD, including how to become a member of a workplace setting, how to represent a certain disciplinary tradition and culture, and perhaps how to understand the PhD also as part of a larger career trajectory. Here, the feedback and support typically come from academics acting as mentors, which may include the formally assigned supervisors just as it may include other academics acting as ‘guardian supervisors’ (Wisker et al., 2017) who are not formally assigned to support the doctoral student, but who nevertheless play a central part in bringing the doctoral student into the research environment and even wider departmental activities. The nonformal learning spaces, which are here associated with ‘third spaces’ for learning (Table 10.1), include the help, support, and feedback from colleagues in professional networks beyond the institution; co-members of other

150  Søren S.E. Bengtsen TABLE 10.1  Summary of types of learning spaces and the forms of support, supporters,

and educational goals they contain Learning spaces

Forms of support

Educational goals

Supporters

First spaces

Professional support Disciplinary expertise Organise research process Progression in formal learning Moral support Enculturation Workplace learning Progression in informal learning

Quality of research Critical thinking Knowledge and methodology Dissertation as academic genre Becoming an academic Professionalism (cultural norms) Disciplinary enculturation Career guidance Moral compass (judgment) Personal Integrity Manage and cope with uncertainty Keeping momentum Personal development and growth Cultural identity Societal membership

Supervisors Administrators Teachers on PhD courses Graduate school leaders Mentors Guardian supervisors Sponsors and hosts Colleagues

Second spaces

Third spaces

Emotional support Work-life balance Motivation and encouragement Identity formation Extra-curricular skills and competences

Coaches Critical friends Professional networks Society and club members Friends and family

organisations, clubs, and societies; friends; and family. Undertaking a PhD is certainly about the acquisition of research skills and techniques, together with becoming socialized into the disciplinary culture, but it is also about finding meaning in the research and the academic identity on personal and existential levels, which include societal and cultural integration, belonging, and membership. Such nonformal learning arenas co-constitute doctoral becoming, academic momentum, and researcher formation. The ecological perspective I am exploring here concerns the interrelation between formal, informal, and nonformal domains. For example, a doctoral student receives a funding grant to go on a prolonged research stay, which is part of the formal learning domain and the so-called ‘first space’ for learning. This opportunity means that the student during his or her stay abroad will become separated from his or her familiar research environment, supervisors, and peer group, which are part of the informal domain and the so-called ‘second space’ for learning. Further, this means that the doctoral student will also be separated from his or her professional networks, friends, and family, which are part of the nonformal domain and the so-called ‘third space’ for learning. In addition, events within the nonformal domain may have strong effects on the formal and informal domains. Should the spouse of a doctoral student get a job in another part of the country or in a different country, the doctoral student

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may have to move there with the family, thus making it more difficult to be a strong presence in the daily work of the department or research team, and the move may influence the level and form of contact with the student’s supervisors and other supporters. Going through a divorce during the PhD may heavily affect the focus, energy, and momentum in the research project and may result in the doctoral student withdrawing from the institutional and disciplinary environment and becoming more isolated and lonely. Dely Elliot and her research team have accentuated the importance of such ‘third spaces’ in doctoral education (Elliot et al., 2015, 2016, 2017). Third spaces typically have a special focus on the links between international doctoral students’ language acquisition, development of cultural identity, and societal belonging and the institutional understanding and research momentum these aspects entail. As Elliot and her team describe it, a ‘third space’ is a ‘space that is neither family-orientated nor educational nor work-orientated [but may certainly be affected by family and work relations], but a space for relaxation and recreation that engages learners and scaffolds their learning’ (Elliot et al., 2017, p. 1189). Third spaces may refer to the spaces ‘that foster personal learning, enjoyment and development through friendships, social activities and wider support networks’ (Elliot et al., 2017, p. 1189). Third space learning points to the often hidden and unacknowledged trajectories of flourishing and growth that are deeply embedded within the doctoral journey and experience. The concept of third spaces makes visible the often tacit and implicit forms of communication and deeper societal and cultural norms and values that our knowledge creation processes, educational programmes, and institutional work and practices rest on. Third space learning includes activities and experiences that help to respond to doctoral students’ longing for social and cultural connection, which has been shown to include ‘volunteering in [a local community support] bookshop, going to sports clubs, joining a church choir, or looking after young children’, and for some doctoral students, this has ‘opened doors to deeper cultural understanding and social relations with local people, [and] establishing [of ] lasting relationships’ (Elliot et al., 2015, pp. 9–10) Third spaces have been described as ‘channels aimed at bringing people together who might have a “collective shared motive” and, thus, leading to participation or working together in activities’ (Elliot et al., 2016, pp. 8–9). Third spaces bridge the educational powers and rationales from formal and informal learning environments and lead to enriched and enhanced research practices. Foregrounding ecological learning in doctoral education is not to say that learning happening outside institutions is more important than more conventional formalized learning or the informal learning taking place within the disciplinary environments. Ecological learning is exactly the very interconnection and interrelatedness of these learning domains. The ecological power lies in the embeddedness and linkage itself. Third spaces make us aware of and understand the undergrowth and hinterland of more conventional learning arenas, whether they be supervision, mentoring programmes, PhD courses, or research

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conferences and seminars. The strength and energy of the research momentum are to be found in the connection between formal, informal, and nonformal doctoral domains. Third spaces should be more strongly integrated with institutional and disciplinary learning spaces and seen as central to retention in doctoral programmes and creativity in the PhD dissertation.

Academic citizenship as ecological dwelling in society Academic citizenship occurs when academics choose to engage in or with wider societal and cultural issues directly through and from their research and knowledge creation processes. Whereas third space learning focuses not only on how wider societal and cultural participation and activities, but also on how relationships and identities, feed back into and energise doctoral education and the PhD, academic citizenship has the reverse focus, namely on how doctoral becoming and researcher formation may feed into the wider society and culture. In addition, although third spaces designate the ‘in between’ of nonformal learning sites, academic citizenship points to more direct and active forms of participation and engagement in societal, political, and cultural agendas. For example, researchers may feel called upon to inform a wider public discussion through newspaper articles and radio interviews. And researchers may offer their knowledge in matters where very few dare risk their opinion due to the culturally or politically sensitive nature of the situation. Academic citizenship is not intended to sway the public into a different opinion or judgment, but to serve the public by providing the best possible knowledge foundation to continue the discussion. Academic citizenship is not about politically counselling or advising the public, but is about maintaining, or adding to, the sobriety and sincerity of the public opinion. Because doctoral education today is a wide political, societal, and cultural phenomenon, we see a growing attention to the formation processes of doctoral students as academics and citizens (Elmgren et al., 2016; Sinclair et al., 2014; Walker et al., 2008). Research, as knowledge creation, is not something to be seen as remote from wider societal concerns, but constitutes what Gildersleeve (2016) terms a ‘knowledge imperative’, which signifies a ‘social contract between colleges and universities and society that promised to safeguard knowledge—as an organizing system of social life—from partisanship, political whim, and undue influence from powerful factions’ (p. 1). In this view, research constitutes what Nixon (2008) calls a ‘buffer zone’ between the crude forces of personal self-interest and the impersonal interests of the state. Research and doctoral knowledge creation profoundly affect the way we act in the world, how we view our own place in society, and how we understand the wider society and culture to which we belong. In a world threatened by fake news and political populism, research and researchers may take on a knowledge leadership role, as protectors not only of a purely epistemic and disciplinary domains, but of a moral domain as well.

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The moral dimension of research is the foundation of academic citizenship. Linking research and societal engagement together builds on Barnett’s social philosophy of higher education (Barnett, 2017) and Macfarlane’s notion of academic citizenship and his view on knowledge and research as a ‘virtue of engagement’ (Macfarlane, 2007). In a recent study, Nørgård and Bengtsen (2016) define academic citizenship as the intertwining of participation in and engagement between universities and society: Having academic citizenship implies the formation of public place within the university and academic place within society. This is done authentically when the university offers itself as means and springboard for social issues and activities in order for them to become critically visible and aware of themselves and the inherent opportunities within them, rather than when the university offers to solve or judge the challenges within society. (Nørgård and Bengtsen, 2016, p. 14) Research and knowledge creation here become forms of societal and cultural engagement and take on the character of an imperative. When other major institutions, such as the church and the government, no longer may claim the epithet of truth-telling, universities and academics seem to be the last resort to go to as ‘institutions of truth’ (Rider, 2018). Doctoral students may find themselves more often listened to and sought for by the public than they assume. Doctoral research often probes into topics we, as a public or culture, are only starting to grasp piecemeal, such as the implications of climate change, the geopolitical shifts between East and West, or the suppression of narratives of marginalized religious, ethnic, or gender groups. In some disciplines, this may mean that doctoral students can present to the public objective and untainted truths, whereas in others, they may provide insight into cultural value and belief systems otherwise difficult for many citizens to access, grasp, or take seriously. Just as other citizens, with their capacity for providing financial capital, social networks, or cultural influences, can help make connections and build societal momentum, the academic citizen, in her or his particular gift and power, can critically connect belief and value systems, cultural identities, and worldviews. Doctoral students do not have to act merely as communicators of knowledge, but may also demonstrate that academic citizenship requires critical engagement and knowledge engagement that move beyond the role of the communicator. Becoming an academic citizen does not mean taking a high chair and lecture to the public, but instead to become part of that public as a researcher and knowledge creator. As a researcher, the doctoral student works from a deep rationality that continuously explores the researcher’s own premises and preconceptions as they merge and become entangled with her or his fellow citizens. The academic citizen balances this act without withdrawing back into his or her shell in the fortified campus, but stays in the public, with the public, as a part of that public.

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We see graduate schools trying to latch on to political and societal agendas through strategic agendas and initiatives, which focus mostly on securing funding and bringing that funding into the universities and into core disciplinary work. In the graduate schools themselves, the links between policy, strategic leadership, disciplinary work, and the wider societal formation of doctoral students are difficult to align (Andres et al., 2015; Cassuto, 2015). To establish doctoral citizenship requires that graduate schools understand themselves as embedded within the wider societal context and belonging to that context, but not being limited and defined by it solely. In a recent work, Nørgård and Bengtsen (2018) draw on Sennet’s work on craftsmanship and guilds to suggest that graduate schools may be viewed as ‘guilds’ in the sense of their societally integrated nature. The notion of guilds, and craft, should not be limited to a professional context, but may be linked instead to thought crafting, or thought work, and its bearings on social, cultural, and political lifeworlds. The university as guild sees into ‘the many possible futures and creates thinking as craftsmanship practice from these futures, and . . . [p]reparing craftsmen for the world ahead is an enduring ethical endeavour of the guild’ (Nørgård and Bengtsen, 2018, p. 178). A focus on doctoral citizenship leads to a rethinking of the doctoral curriculum and the work and organisation of graduate schools that is too extensive to embrace fully in this chapter. However, we have caught sight of a doctoral curriculum understood as one of societal dwelling in contrast to institutional isolation, one of social and cultural engagement and participation in contrast to seclusion within a purely disciplinary learning space, and one of care (Barnacle and Dall’Alba, 2017) in the process of knowledge creation. Understanding graduate schools as guilds implies that research and researchers are part of society and that knowledge is created in, for, and from societies (Barnett and Bengtsen, 2019).

Cultural leadership and ecological upheaval Whereas third spaces learning and academic citizenship deal with the synergies and the symbiosis between researcher formation and education and wider societal and cultural domains, cultural leadership points to the implications of ecological upheaval and a critical discussion of the current state of affairs. Kelly (2017) and Shumar and Robinson (2018) point to the ecological potential of higher and doctoral education as creating new cultural imaginings. Viewed from an ecological perspective, the PhD and the doctoral journey have the ability and power to open new worlds and worldviews, and perhaps even contribute to their wider societal and cultural making and manifestations. As Kelly (2017) points out, doctoral students often strive ‘to destabilise their accepted systems of knowledge’, which ‘tells us that there is an openness or perhaps even a desire to think outside or beyond the modern Western episteme’ (pp. 119–120). For example, students may critically explore the underpinnings of commonly accepted power hierarchies within our societies or challenge commonly accepted definitions of mental health or criminal activity. Following Barnett’s work on the role and power of

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imagination in higher education, doctoral students, arguably in particular, possess a unique form of imaginative thinking, and they have ‘a power to see into things, to feel into things, to be at one with things anew, so as to produce a new understanding of the object of the imagination’ (Barnett, 2013, p. 25). However, creating new societal, political, and cultural imaginings is not without consequences. Junior and senior researchers may experience being challenged on their perspectives on a given cultural or political matter by examiners or by external stakeholders or policymakers, or they may simply be ignored. When researching and interacting across different social and cultural domains, the knowledge activities and knowing efforts are threatened to disappear into the cracks between the domains or, unintentionally, to raise a lasting conflict between cultural groups or political fractions. We have seen examples of this with doctoral students through their research revealing, to contemporary eyes, a disturbing and unsettling history of their own country, which may have been collectively suppressed, and where doctoral students, through their research, challenge mainstream culturally accepted categories for gender, race, or ethnicity. In such cases, young researchers may find themselves caught up in a media dispute or political controversy, which assimilates and warps the research into a mainstream caricature. In a recent study, which focuses on the darker aspects of higher education ecologies that do not promote any immediately enhanced public understanding (but sometimes the reverse), such examples are conceptualized as a dark ontology with ecological upheaval as a possible consequence: When moving into the deeper layers of knowledge, beneath visible and understandable ecologies, we may be troubled by this lack of foundation. . . . Rough, lumped-together generalizations that help to maintain common sense understandings of phenomena or events in the world may be initially attractive, but may also turn out to be reductionist and somewhat misleading. This may be experienced as the infamous ‘lag’ when universities and other societal institutions, organizations, and companies try to translate each other’s work and mindset. This lag itself is a dark space as it holds unforeseen and unknown futures. At the heart of a dark ontology is a messiness in the interstices between ecosystems. Bengtsen and Barnett, 2019) The ecological upheaval, as when research and researchers create dissonance between the academic and societal domains, disturbs the status quo and may disclose hidden or dormant discrepancies, tensions, and conflicts. In research, seen as an isolated activity, this is what is expected and desired for doctoral students, but they are not trained for, and supported in, responding to such reactions towards their wider societal and cultural engagement. To be able to meet reactions and challenges from politicians, the media, professional domains, the industry, or even upset individual citizens requires a certain training and formation trajectory that we do not yet see in doctoral education today. It would

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require doctoral students to view their research not only from within their own core discipline, or even subdiscipline, but to have an inbuilt wider societal and cultural outlook in their research identity and perhaps even in their research project. To take on a role of cultural leadership, where the researcher chooses to involve and engage with the public and perhaps even political domains, requires an academic empathy. This means to be able to view research as a privileged look into belief systems, biological systems, cultural events, personalities, or behavioural patterns, which gives the researcher an epistemic upper hand when entering into dialogue with others. The challenge here is not to judge, but to listen to the voices in their responses to the often unexpected and sometimes unsettling knowledge from the research. At the same time, cultural leadership requires academic integrity, which requires that the researcher does not yield to outward pressure or mainstream complaints about the allegedly unacceptable nature of the research. Integrating cultural leadership into the doctoral curriculum requires collective effort from the entire graduate school and its various curricular activities, actors, members, and stakeholders. On the graduate school level, it requires that the graduate school’s identity and self-understanding go beyond the institution and that it becomes fully integrated in a guild-like manner as described in an earlier section. On the curricular level, it requires that the PhD strives not only to contribute with highly specialized knowledge back into the disciplines, but also aspires to view the PhD as a feasible utopia (Barnett, 2018). As Barnett (2013) writes, a feasible utopia should ‘strain at the limits of imagining, on the one hand, and yet ultimately be susceptible to returning to earth and being worked out in practical ventures’ (p. 26). The feasible utopia is ‘an optimistic idea. This is not to say that it is likely to appear, given the circumstances of the world. But, realistically, it could appear’ (Barnett, 2018, p. 173). In the doctoral ecology, researcher education and the PhD should strive for feasible utopias not only within the disciplinary programmes and epistemologies, but also on a societal and cultural level.

Conclusion When building doctoral ecologies, three ecological constituents emerge. Firstly, ecological learning is seen to be possible and occur not only within the institutional domains, but also within the so-called third spaces, which include learning spaces that are not only formal and informal, but go beyond these and that have been termed nonformal. Third spaces help doctoral students find a cultural footing, a social identity, and professional and social networks and build momentum and fuse their research with a societal and culturally spawned drive for thinking and knowledge creation. Secondly, ecological dwelling is seen to be possible as academic citizenship, where the research undertaken by the doctoral student feeds into wider societal and cultural practices and activities. Here, the graduate school is not seen as an isolated and campus-bound community, but as

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a guild—an academic community embedded within a wider societal and cultural framework, which works, thinks, and acts from the societal context itself. Finally, ecological upheaval is seen as an expected consequence of the two former ecological constituents, which happens when the boundary-pushing and liminality-seeking doctoral learning and work push against the status quo of mainstream societal and cultural stability. The upheaval should not be shunned, but accepted and embraced, but it demands new and particular graduate school initiatives and doctoral pedagogies to be further developed and supported. The challenge for the future development of doctoral education is to create and sustain doctoral pedagogies and forms of graduate school leadership that ensure synergy and links between formal, informal, and nonformal learning domains. To do this, important, but difficult, questions should be addressed by graduate school leaders, doctoral supervisors, and doctoral students: How do we understand and educate researchers in the 21st century (and beyond), and how may research become an ecological link among our future researchers, academic institutions, and societies?

References Acker, S., & Haque, E. (2017). Left out in the academic field: Doctoral graduates deal with a decade of disappearing jobs. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 47(3), 101–119. Andres, L., Bengtsen, S., Crossouard, B., Gallego, L., Keefer, J., & Pyhältö, K. (2015). Drivers and interpretations of doctoral education today: National comparisons. Frontline Learning Research, 3(2), 63–80. Barnacle, R., & Dall’Alba, G. (2017). Committed to learn: Student engagement and care in higher education. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(7), 1326–1338. Barnacle, R., Schmidt, C., & Cuthbert, D. (2019). Expertise and the PhD: Between depth and a flat place. Higher Education Quarterly, 73(2), 168–181. Barnett, R. (2011). Lifewide education: A new and transformative concept for higher education. In N. J. Jackson (Ed.), Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development (pp. 22–38). Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. Barnett, R. (2013). Imagining the university. New York, NY: Routledge. Barnett, R. (2017). Constructing the university: Towards a social philosophy of higher education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49(1), 78–88. Barnett, R. (2018). The ecological university: A feasible utopia. New York, NY: Routledge. Barnett, R., & Bengtsen, S. (2019). Knowledge and the university: Re-claiming life. New York, NY: Routledge. Bengtsen, S. (2016a). An exploration of darkness within doctoral education. Creative learning approaches of doctoral students. In C. Zhou (Ed.), Handbook of research on creative problem-solving skill development in higher education (pp. 260–282). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Bengtsen, S. (2016b). Doctoral supervision. Organization and dialogue. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press. Bengtsen, S., & Barnett, R. (2017a). Confronting the dark side of higher education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 51(1), 114–131. Bengtsen, S., & Barnett, R. (2019). Higher education and alien ecologies: Exploring the dark ontology of the university. Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education, Special Issue: Higher Education and the Anthropocene, November, 17–40.

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Burford, J. (2018).The trouble with doctoral aspiration now. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31(6), 1–17. Cassuto, L. (2015). The graduate school mess. What caused it and how can we fix it. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Cherry, N. (2012). The paradox and fog of supervision. Site for the encounters and growth of praxis, persons, and voices. Quality Assurance in Education, 20(1), 6–19. Elliot, D. L., Baumfield,V., & Reid, K. (2017). Searching for a ‘third space’: A creative pathway towards international PhD students’ academic acculturation. Higher Education Research and Development, 35(6), 1180–1195. Elliot, D. L., Baumfield, V., Reid, K., & Makara, K. A. (2016). Hidden treasures: Successful international doctoral students who found and harnessed the hidden curriculum. Oxford Review of Education, 42. doi: 10.1080/03054985.2016.1229664 Elliot, D. L., Reid, K., & Baumfield,V. (2015). Beyond the amusement, puzzlement and challenges: An enquiry into international students’ academic acculturation. Studies in Higher Education, 41(12), 1–22. Elmgren, M., Forsberg, E., Lindberg-Sand, Å., & Sonesson, A. (2016). The formation of doctoral education. Lund, Sweden: Lund University. Gardner, S. K., & Mendoza, P. (Eds.). (2010). On becoming a scholar: Socialization and development in doctoral education. Sterling,VA: Stylus Publishing. Gildersleeve, R. E. (2016).The neoliberal academy of the anthropocene and the retaliation of the lazy academic. Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies, 17(3), 286–293. Gokhberg, L., Shamtko, N., & Auriol, L. (Eds.). (2016). The science and technology labor force.The value of doctorate holders and development of professional careers. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Publishing. Hopwood, N., Alexander, P., Harris-Huemmert, S., McAlpine, L., & Wagstaff, S. (2011). The hidden realities of life as a doctoral student. In V. Kumar & A. Lee (Eds.), Doctoral education in international context: Connecting local, regional and global perspectives (pp. 213–233). Serdang, Malaysia: UniversitiPutra Malaysia Press. Jackson, N. J. (2011a). An imaginative lifewide curriculum. In N. J. Jackson (Ed.), Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development (pp. 100–121). Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. Jackson, N. J. (Ed.). (2011b). Learning for a complex world: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. Kelly, F. (2017). The idea of the PhD: The doctorate in the twenty-first century imagination. New York, NY: Routledge Macfarlane, B. (2007). The academic citizen.The virtue of service in university life. New York, NY: Routledge. Manathunga, C. (2005). The development of research supervision: ‘Turning the light on a private space’. International Journal for Academic Development, 10(1), 17–30. McAlpine, L., & Norton, J. (2006). Reframing our approach to doctoral programs: A learning perspective. Higher Education Research and Development, 25(1), 3–17. Nixon, J. (2008). Towards the virtuous university. The moral bases of academic practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Nørgård, R. T., & Bengtsen, S. (2016). Academic citizenship beyond the campus: A call for the placeful university. Higher Education Research and Development, 35(1), 4–16. Nørgård, R.T., & Bengtsen, S. (2018).The Worldhood university: Design signatures and guild thinking. In S. Bengtsen & R. Barnett (Eds.), The thinking university. A philosophical examination of thought and higher education (pp. 167–184). New York, NY: Springer Publishing. Pearson, M., & Brew, A. (2002). Research training and supervision development. Studies in Higher Education, 27(2), 135–150.

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Rider, S. (2018). Truth, democracy, and the mission of the university. In S. Bengtsen & R. Barnett (Eds.), The thinking university. A philosophical examination of thought and higher education. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Publishing. Shumar, W., & Robinson, S. (2018). Universities as societal drivers. Entrepreneurial interventions for a better future. In S. Bengtsen & R. Barnett (Eds.), The thinking university: A philosophical examination of thought and higher education. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Publishing. Sinclair, J., Barnacle, R., & Cuthbert, D. (2014). How the doctorate contributes to the formation of active researchers: What the research tells us. Studies in Higher Education, 39(10), 1972–1986. Walker, G. E., Golde, C. M., Jones, L., Bueschel, A. C., & Hutchings, P. (2008). The formation of scholars. Rethinking doctoral education for the twenty-first century. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Wisker, G., & Robinson, G. (2012). Picking up the pieces: Supervisors and doctoral ‘orphanes’. International Journal for Researcher Development, 3(2), 139–153. Wisker, G., Robinson, G., & Bengtsen, S. (2017). Penumbra: Doctoral support as drama: From the ‘lightside’ to the ‘darkside’. From front of house to trapdoors and recesses. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 54(6), 527–538. doi: 10.1080/14703297.2017.1371057 Wright, S. (2016) Universities in a knowledge economy or ecology? Policy, contestation and abjection. Critical Policy Studies, 10(1), 59–78.

Part 3

Ecologies for learning and practice in the world

11 LEARNING ECOLOGIES AT WORK Karen Evans

Introduction The ways in which adults learn in the workplace and throughout working life are rooted in occupational contexts and personal biographies. The usefulness of the social ecology metaphor is that it provides a way to understand the complexity of factors that impact directly or indirectly on the workplace practices and occupational environments that are potentially generative of learning without losing sight of the learning individual. Every contextual factor and every person contributing or influenced are part of a complex ecology, a system of interdependent and mutually adaptive social relationships. This chapter will show how, in rapidly changing work environments, an examination of the dynamics of the whole system at play reveals ways in which the human processes of working and learning are intertwined, as workers interact and work together, constructing and developing social practices as many different forms of knowledge are put to work. According to Weaver-Hightower (2008), the four categories of actors, relationships, environments and structures, and processes lie at the heart of social ecological analyses. These differ in the degree of significance that is accorded to personal agency, through which actors ‘depending on their resources and power, are able to change ecological systems for their own benefit’ (p. 156) Because ecologies self-adapt through interdependencies that operate without centralised controls, individuals and groups have spaces in which to exercise agency in ways that can influence the whole dynamic, through the interdependencies involved. Such spaces, sometimes taken for granted by the privileged, are bounded in ways that can limit action for many others. They can also be expanded by individuals and collectives who work cooperatively to effect change.

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Another approach that has adopted a social-ecological metaphor was developed by Bronfenbrenner (1979) to bring the contextualised nature of development to the fore in psychological perspectives on human development. Departing from approaches that had hitherto neglected the reflexive and embodied nature of person-environment interactions, in which individual responses alter the environment in which they find themselves, Bronfenbrenner (1979) identified four levels of interconnected systems that have an impact on human development: Microsystem: The microsystem is the innermost layer of Bronfenbrenner’s model. This context is closest to an individual and encompasses interpersonal relationships and direct interactions. Mesosystem: The mesosystem includes interactions and mutual influences between elements of the microsystem. Exosystem: The exosystem affects individuals and environments indirectly, through structures that act on the microsystem. Macrosystem: The macrosystem includes dominant social or cultural norms and beliefs that shape aspects of the environments experienced by individual actors. In a further development of this socioecological approach to understanding human development in context, Bronfenbrenner included the chronosystem, to incorporate the shifting interactions between individuals and environments over time. In critiquing his own model, Bronfenbrenner subsequently emphasised more fully individuals’ own role in their learning and development. The focus on the learning individual as the unit of analysis has been taken further in a transdisciplinary range of social scientific studies of human development in context. Biesta and Tedder (2007), for example, have argued, in a life-course perspective, that people do not act in structures and environments but instead act through them. This resonates with a sense of human agency as central to contextualised understandings of human development (Evans, 2002). These approaches shed light on aspects of human development previously ignored in sociology. In so doing, care has to be taken not to overestimate the extent to which individual agency can reshape opportunities or lose sight of the ways in which social institutions can interlock in restricting spaces for agency to be expressed (Alheit and Dausien, 2002). Educational and labour market institutions, colleges and workplaces, interact in the generation of learning ecologies that can be experienced as transformative, adaptive, or reproductive of social inequalities. People’s beliefs in their ability to change their situation by their efforts, individually or collectively, are significant for the development of capabilities at work and in personal lives. These beliefs change and develop over time and according to experiences in the labour market. The ability to translate these beliefs into action is achieved rather than possessed, and capabilities are limited by bonds that can be loosened. In professional lives, expressions of bounded

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agency are as reflective of wider socioeconomic environments and cultural landscapes as they are of individuals’ own capabilities and the proximal influences of workplace, family, and community. The forms of knowledge that practitioners continuously develop and put to work in practice include not only subject knowledge and work process knowledge, but also ‘knowhow’ and tacit forms of personal knowledge (Evans, 2017). These forms of knowledge build on personal histories that influence how and what individuals come to know, make sense of, and act upon in the daily situations that they encounter in workplaces and in the social world.

An ecological approach to learning at work An ecological approach to learning at work keeps the whole system in view. It is sensitive to both distal and proximal influences on learning, focusing not only on the learning individual, but also on how workers’ activities are shared and distributed, and how knowledge circulates, within the division of labour, organisational structures, and cultures (Fenwick, 2008). In an approach that integrates an individual worker and socio-organisational dynamics, Evans et al. (2006) identify three scales of activity (macro, intermediate, and individual levels). At the macro level, wider social and economic structures and institutions can be fundamental in enabling or preventing effective learning from taking place. This includes the legal frameworks that govern employees’ entitlements, industrial relations, and the role of trades unions, as well as the social structuring of business systems and adult learning systems. At the intermediate level of activity, the nature of the work environment can expand or restrict learning (Fuller and Unwin, 2004). Establishing cultures that support expansive learning environments is problematic. For many employers, workers’ learning is not a strategic priority. However, senior managers can exert positive influences over the culture of an organisation and the support it gives to workplace learning, in processes that entail trade-offs between competing interests. At the level of the individual workers, their past experiences, dispositions, and present situation will affect the extent to which they take advantage of the opportunities afforded by their immediate work environment, at any given time. Figure 11.1 illustrates a variety of workplace ecosystems. The surgical team can be seen to work in relation to a wider hospital ecosystem, which itself functions within a health care ecosystem that is subject to many forms of regulation. The office ecosystem operates within the distinctive ecosystem of an organisation and within the professional standards of wider business ecosystems. The racing car mechanics’ ecosystem will also operate very differently in a Formula One car-racing ecosystem, in terms of culture, expectations, and regulations, as compared to a general motor repair garage. The architectural design studio team operates within a larger system of clients, building contractors, project managers, and building and planning regulators.

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Four examples of workplace ecosystems: office, racing car garage, architect design studio, and hospital operating theatre.

FIGURE 11.1 

A social-ecological approach can open up fresh ideas about spaces for learning in working life. Changing technologies and work patterns in increasingly insecure labour markets all challenge dominant views of work-related education and training. It is important to recognise that workers who are part of the work system also have lives outside it; they are engaged in multiple overlapping structures and communities of social practice that might also be interpreted as eco-social systems. The socioecological perspective explores these phenomena, focusing on the creation and development of multidimensional learning spaces that can both respond to and shape the changing situations of workers in quite different work contexts.

Working places as learning spaces The perception of the workplace as a site only for work and organisationspecific training has altered as workplaces are increasingly acknowledged as sites of learning that contribute to the personal development and social engagement of individuals as well as to the exercise of wider social responsibility (Evans, 2009). Evolving perspectives on learning at work, which challenge traditional training regimens that equate workplace learning with on-the-job learning, increasingly focus on the social, spatial, and relational aspects of learning in and through workplaces. For an organisation to understand itself as inherently supportive of learning, an essential feature is that mechanisms are put in place to optimise the development of all levels of employees, from shop floor to the chief executive, so as

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to create an environment where employees recognise that their ideas will be acknowledged and discussed and can influence working practices. Workplaces can then be characterised as both work spaces and learning spaces where the boundaries between the two are considerably blurred. Development of the notion that new spaces for learning are generated in social ecologies (Kolb and Kolb, 2005) expands Bronfenbrenner’s model to attend more fully to inputs made by workers into their own and others’ development and reinforces the significance of learning spaces for the expression of individual and collective agency. Within a socioecological perspective, the concept of a learning space opens in multiple directions. Firstly, the learning space can be perceived as a physical space where learning is taking place, such as a classroom or any other form of teaching space. Secondly, the learning space can refer to a space where learning occurs as part of a working process, for example, when employees learn from taking on a new role or from each other’s experiences. Thirdly, the widespread use of digital technologies has resulted in the development of virtual learning spaces with flexible and mobile features. Finally, the learning space can be perceived as the totality of all such settings, including physical space, learning contexts and environments, formal and informal learning, and virtual learning.

Affordances for learning in workplace environments Affordances for (and impediments to) learning are to be found in all workplace environments and are those aspects of working arrangements that potentially invite and enable learning, from the ways in which people are organised in work groups to the layout of work stations and the operation of appraisals and staff development activities. Some affordances are more accessible and visible than others. The intention of employees to pursue their goals and interests, whether in their jobs or personal lives, makes the opportunities for learning more evident to them. Shifting orientations to learning and efforts to compensate for early educational disadvantage enable some individuals to recognise and seize opportunities for learning within the workplace (Waite, Evans, and Kersh, 2014). The knowhow associated with practices, such as report writing or finding better ways of expressing oneself, often develops as the person engages with opportunities. Ensuring that opportunities for learning are visible to the widest range of employees can prompt some employees to act and use those opportunities, and new understandings can result. In some companies, for example, open learning centres have developed a wide range of learning facilities (e.g., online courses and the loan of laptops), which can be flexibly incorporated into employees’ lives at work and home. In others, trade unions have used the learning representative system to negotiate learning opportunities and to ensure that workers know what support is available and how to use it. In the shifting orientations to learning that can arise from workplace activities, the changing levels of know-how and the confidence that comes from ‘knowing that you can’ both stimulate the further seeking out of possibilities within and beyond the workplace.

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Some workers who were initially offered workplace programmes to develop their English language, mathematics, and capabilities in their use of computers were motivated to take up further education in areas ranging from information technology to creative writing. Some accessed multiple online courses at the company learning centre and looked for openings for advancement within the company or beyond it. For some, even where redundancy has followed, the change in learning orientation was sustained, enabling a wider range of possibilities to be considered than might otherwise have been the case. The specific combinations of challenge, motivation, and support that enabled these workers to expand their horizons point toward a better understanding of learning at work as part of a wider social ecology of adult learning.

Challenge and support as conditions for learning Drawing again on Bronfenbrenner’s ideas (mentioned earlier), many workplace studies that begin with a focus on the microsystem of the worker move rapidly to considerations of the mesosystem and exosystem influences. For example, Eraut’s (2011) investigations of the informal learning of newly qualified workers in the institutional workplace identified a set of triangular relationships of learning factors (challenge-confidence-support) and contextual factors (structuring of work–relationships–expectations of performance and progress). Confidence at work, as also shown in the Waite et al. (2014) study, was manifested not as a fixed attribute but as an orientation that changes as individuals or groups successfully meet challenges in everyday work situations that require learning. Confidence, like resilience, is, as psychologists explain it, a ‘state, not a trait’ or, in other words, a disposition arising out of experience and therefore changeable, rather than an immutable characteristic of the person. The confidence to take on the unexpected, respond to difficulties, and solve problems is, in part, dependent on the extent to which workers feel supported in that endeavour. This support may be provided through supervisory and mentoring arrangements and also through co-worker relationships. As Eraut (2004) observed ‘if there is neither a challenge nor sufficient support to encourage a person to seek out or respond to a challenge, then confidence declines and with it the motivation to learn’ (p. 269).

Productivity, participation, and the use of capabilities Productivity in enterprises is connected with high levels of workplace participation by engaged workers who identify with their roles and feel that their capabilities and contributions are recognised and utilised (Gallie et al., 2018). However, the interdependencies of microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem that produce the conditions for engagement are not well understood. The relevance of the concurrent environments of mesosystems (e.g., family environments) is often underrecognised. Evidence on workplace basic skills development, for example, suggests that family settings play an important role in

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supporting the use and development of a range of capabilities, thus extending the learning space from the workplace to the home environment. Family situations also affect considerably the worker’s decisions about participation in learning programmes, particularly in terms of timing.

Expanding virtual learning and working spaces Virtual learning, associated with the growth of digital technologies, contributes to an erasure of borders between different learning sites. Specialists in information technology training are part of the exosystem. Their perspectives on learning spaces are instructive in enabling reflections on how learning spaces can be differentiated according to degrees of freedom across institutional and independent (freelance/self-employed) workplace settings. Information technology specialists invited to consider the concept of learning spaces at work suggest that, in both types of setting, individuals learn through self-created learning spaces (Kersh and Evans, 2017). Although institutional settings obviously allow some flexibility for creating personal learning spaces, this normally applies within the accepted practices of the specific workplace. The freelancer, on the other hand, potentially has more flexibility to create and develop more innovative (or at least less conventional) learning and working spaces. In the context of independent work, in which the boundaries between micro-, meso-, and exosystems are blurred, such workers often generate their own quasi-institutional environment. Digital technologies in both independent work and institutions can play a significant role in expanding and developing virtual learning spaces in ways that facilitate communication, knowledge sharing, and skills development and even transnationally.

The significance of organisational contexts and cultures It has already been intimated that interventions designed to promote workplace learning must accommodate both worker and employer interests and attend to the dynamics of the whole environment. For example, the work environment affects how far formal learning can be a positive trigger for further learning. A narrow of view of learning and also unrealistic expectations about immediately measurable changes in performance are not likely to enhance the learning environment. The learning potential of the workplace, including those features of the environment that invite workers to engage and learn, is enhanced or limited according to the wider ecologies embedded in the employment relationship. Practice ecologies that give rise to learning are linked to organisational culture, climate, and features that Amabile and Kramer (2011) identify as nourishers and inhibiters of productivity and creativity. In the ecological mode, individuals and groups can structure their environments for learning, creating affordances that were not there before (see Chapter 12) or tactically pursuing ends that extend beyond the immediate workplace (Waite et al., 2014).

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Ecologies of learning and practice in short-term contract-based work For the contract-based or freelance worker, the socio-ecological interdependencies that produce, limit, or undermine learning take on a particular shape. The independent and contracted worker’s experiences of moving between contractors, tasks, and assignments in local labour markets brings dimensions of the exosystem more fully into view—the configuration of businesses, their interrelationships, and the local systems of learning support. The continuing professional learning of workers of all kinds is more likely to be productive when development opportunities have some congruence with the contextualised preferences of individuals and relate to the ways of living and working they seek (Sen, 1993). A challenge for the growing numbers of contract-based workers is how to develop progressively their capabilities when faced with diversity in contexts, a variable quality of work assignments, and interruptions to continuity (Taylor, 2017; Bound et al., 2019). In addition to providing access for such workers to learning resources and platforms that are independent of the employers to whom they are contracted, a social ecological approach can deepen the debate about support for the learning and development of nonpermanent workers by attending to variations and interdependencies in: • • • •

The situations and learning dispositions of the workers themselves The quality of the work assignments they undertake The quality of the work environments in which they are carried out How employment relationships between the worker and the employer are regulated in national and industry contexts, including entitlements and obligations

Occupational affordances for the learning and development of contingent and precarious workers require four interdependent elements (Bound et al., 2019). 1. Work quality: Opportunities for specialisation and quality assignments; availability of work that stretches and challenges and provides rich affordances for learning. 2. Linkages: Ease of entry and movement across subsectors of the industry, job roles, and networks. 3. Occupational community platforms: Access to experts, networks, and quality assignments, including through associations and nonprofit organisations. 4. Voice: Institutional representation—union representation, combined with support in the welfare and pensions system, including tax and welfare settlements that spread risks and provide supports such as tax breaks for training and development. The work environments, linkages, platforms, and channels for representation and communication influence the ways in which actual career events can potentially

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follow on from engagement in learning. Career patterns, as part of the chronosystem, can be categorised as progressive (promotion, planned move to a better job); upwards drift (gradual enhancement of work, overcoming difficulties, increased responsibilities); downwards drift; stagnation; and interruption. Career events often entail other meso-level influences, including parallel activities and immediate family considerations—for example, workers who have drawn on adult learning opportunities accessed through the workplace to pursue hobbies and embark on further learning or prepare to start their own business and early retiring workers who draw upon their experience of workplace learning both in order to support children’s development and to pave the way for a more fulfilled retirement.

The interplay of learning experiences: Formal, informal, and self-directed The examination of reflexive relationships as part of a social ecology leads to understanding afresh the relationships between formal and informal learning at work and recognising more fully how individuals and work groups can create their own ecologies of practice and learning. We know how training characterised as ‘informal’ in nature is structured by work processes and the kinds of decisions workers make as part of the learning process, whereas formal programmes not only support employees in mastering their field of activity but also can generate a motivation and a desire to learn more (Taylor and Evans, 2009). With greater insights into the affordances of work for learning, the workplace benefits that can result from more inclusive and continuous forms of learning become even more apparent. Workplace learning is often independent of teachers and trainers. Taylor and Evans (2009) have shown that fundamental components of informal learning are independent and selfdriven in the sense that they entail activities such as ‘searching independently for information’ and ‘practising without supervision’. Integrating support for such self-directed learning (SDL) into human resource development strategies requires that workplace learning programmes and supports should match, as far as possible, the participants’ self-directing capabilities in learning (Ellinger, 2004) and support workers towards higher stages of self-directedness. As employees begin to participate in formal learning, they start to recognise more fully their capacities for self-directedness in the everyday workplace. Self-directional capacities gradually increase with confidence and engagement. Workplace informal learning is not limited to simplistic understandings of SDL, such as independent mastery of work procedures, but necessarily encompasses the relationships between employees (as learners as well as workers), context, and opportunities. Thus, SDL depends on the elements of the mesosystem and exosystem factors that can both facilitate or impede it. For example, the informal learning that can result from ‘mentoring or coaching’ as well as participating in ‘focused workplace discussions’ or work committees is a complex interplay

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between employee agency, workplace relationships and interdependencies, and the learning spaces of the wider environment. These variables can promote rich practice-based learning, for example, where doors are opened to opportunities to expand and share knowledge and skills in supportive workgroups. Knowledge and learning in the workplace are constructed from social interactions and within the institutional and regulatory ecosystems that allow them to function. Recognising this dynamic allows us to problematise ‘self-directed’ learning and point to alternative conceptualisations that can embrace the interdependencies inherent in workplace practices and environments. Although learning is viewed as an integral part of practice, attention needs to be paid to the environment as a whole and the exosystem influences arising from educational partnerships and frameworks for formal learning in which the organisation participates. The quality of the work environment affects how far formal learning can be a positive trigger for enhanced learning through day-to-day activities. A challenge is to explore the overlap and scope for the mediation of different, sometimes competing, employee and employer interests at the practical level. For example, supervisors under pressure of targets are sometimes reluctant to find the time and space to allow workers to put new ideas sparked by formal learning activities into practice. The involvement of worker representatives can contribute positively to the expression of employees’ interests in these matters, for example, where there is a system of union learning representatives.

The quality of learning and support at work: Multiple influences and some risks Workplace initiatives can and do support learning and motivation if the conditions and dynamics, both personal and organisational, are right. Conversely, adverse consequences often arise from restrictive learning environments, for example, where there is a lack of supervisory support, poorly developed training materials on how to use software or electronic equipment, or poor induction to work activities and practices. These factors not only combine to undermine motivation to learn, but also can undermine general skills and competence development in the workplace. In exploring how workers of all kinds can become knowledgeable practitioners (Evans, 2015), the research shows how these processes are embedded in larger sets of relationships that influence the quality of the work environment and the practices of day-to-day work. Modes of industry engagement; professional, industry, and workplace discourses; funding and industrial relations; and the degree of industry susceptibility to change and the organisation of production, along with a worker’s own sense of agency, all can influence the ways in which practice ecologies can be mobilised for learning and professional development. Even with a shift globally towards greater support and recognition for workplace learning, the matter of how effectively to support workplace-based learning of workers assigned to fixed-term, project-based or task-based activities

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poses problems with few obvious solutions. Ways in which the learning and development of these workers might be enlarged, or constrained, depends crucially on the strategic interplay of workforce development policies and the wider organisational and societal terrains created for worker development. That skills might atrophy in growing sections of the working population is a societal risk, when scaled up, and is at odds with espoused aims for highly skilled and knowledgeable workforces. And where employees pursue development opportunities in a clandestine fashion or beyond the scope of workforce development provision, it is important to understand the reasons for this and identify overt avenues for learning and development that address workers’ aspirations as well as their everyday life and work realities.

Reimagining relationships between learning and work and education and employment This chapter has identified several settings in which a social-ecological approach can help to elucidate the dynamics of learning in, through, and around workplace environments and work-related experiences. Ways in which ordinary workers might act in pursuit of various learning interests have been documented. These interests find their expression as part of a wider dynamic, including the macro-organisational and policy environments and the interdependencies set up within and beyond the workplace and development. Workers are both part of the work system and have lives outside it; they are engaged in overlapping structures and communities of social practice that can be analysed as forms of social-ecological interdependencies. An ecological view of learning as integral to practice pays attention to the whole environment and all the processes that generate human development within and beyond the work environment. Keeping in view the many dimensions of workers’ learning environment—organisational, political, regulatory, cultural—and how they change over time enables us to see social-ecological possibilities for development. The shift from ‘training’ to ‘workplace learning’ locates learning in social relations at work and expands spaces for worker agency, as the strivings for hearts and minds are played out. Managers often express interest in the potential of programmes to raise morale and so strengthen the psychological contract between firm and employee (Wolf and Evans, 2011). Improving workplace learning requires paying attention to what people want and need and to the different expressions of interests that come from work groups in the social landscapes of the organisation and labour market. Worker voice plays a greater part in new management strategies and can enable managers to bring about a better equilibrium of interests. In the end, however, expanding and improving learning at work involves evaluations of the balances of advantage involved in enhancing the character of the broader environment, while recognising that the organisation’s raison d’être is the production of goods or services rather than learning per se.

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Presumed learning benefits accruing from enhanced work-based learning possibilities have to be balanced against their effects on other priorities. The interdependencies of work and learning, however, extend far beyond the organisation and workplace to the neighbourhood conditions, changing labour market dynamics, and community relations, all of which may fundamentally affect spaces for learning and the scope people have for the realisation of their life and work goals. Social-ecological perspectives facilitate the development of social imaginaries, the set of values, institutions, laws, and symbols common to a particular social group. In the field of workplace learning, keeping in view multiple societal and organisational interdependencies prompts the conclusion that workplace learning and workforce development have to be imagined in new ways that fundamentally rethink the relationships between education, learning, and employment (Sadik, 2017). The systems and affordances that can best support adult learning in ways that meet personal and societal objectives would not mimic initial education but would instead focus on the integrated development of capabilities in and through practice. An ecological approach has been useful in describing chains of interdependencies that are set up when adults exercise their personal agency through environments and in relation to the human, technological, and material opportunities for learning. The tools available for designing approaches that aim to promote worker agency are rather limited. They include self-evaluation checklists that are drawn from competence frameworks or lists of employability skills. They also include appraisal systems, some of which aim to institutionalise, in individualised ways, the spaces in which workers operate, collectively and informally. Conceptual modelling can help in carrying out systematic case comparisons across educational and workplace environments (Evans, Kersh, and Kontiainen, 2004). Understanding and modelling what is facilitating what in any given environment is, at one level, a research matter. However, tools for reflection on what (or who) is facilitating (or impeding) learning can assist actors in finding ways to influence work arrangements and processes in ways that can make particular desired outcomes more or less likely. A social ecology perspective provides a way into understanding the complex of influences on learning in the workplace, through the interplay of actors, structures, processes, and environments. This interplay is not restricted to the workplace but involves the overlap of learning spaces and other contexts that extend well beyond the workplace and that develop over time. The social processes shape employees’ perceptions and attitudes towards engagement in workplace learning, thus influencing their professional and personal development and life chances within the workplace and beyond. The interplay of human development, institutional processes, and societal dynamics can be reshaped through reimaginings of the relationships between learning and work, but this requires that the whole system be kept in view. And working through the many interdependencies present in making sense of one’s world may even contribute to changing the existing order.

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References Alheit, P., & Dausien, L. (2002). The double face of lifelong learning: Two analytical perspectives in a learning revolution. Studies in the Education of Adults, 34, 3–22. Amabile, T. M., & Kramer, S. J. (2011). The progress principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. Biesta, G., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: Towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39(2), 132–149. Bound, H., Evans, K., Sadik, S., & Karmel, A. (2019). How non-permanent workers learn and develop. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ellinger, D. A. (2004). The concept of self-directed learning and its implications of human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 6(2), 158–177. Eraut, M. (2004). Informal learning in the workplace. Studies in Continuing Education, 26(2), 247–273. Eraut, M. (2011). Tools for enhancing learning. In M. Malloch, L. Cairns, K. Evens, & B. N. O’Connor (Eds.), The Sage handbook of workplace learning. London, United Kingdom: Sage. Evans, K. (2002). Taking control of their lives? Journal of Youth Studies, 5(3), 245–269. Evans, K. (2009). Learning, work and social responsibility. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Evans, K. (2015). Developing knowledgeable practice at work. In M. Elg (Ed.), Sustainable development in organisations. London, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar. Evans, K. (2017). Bounded agency in professional lives. In M. Goller, & S. Paloniemi (Eds.), Agency at work. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Evans, K., Hodkinson, H., Rainbird, H., & Unwin, L. (2006). Improving workplace learning. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. Evans, K., Kersh, N., & Kontiainen, S. (2004). Recognition of tacit skills: Sustaining learning outcomes in adult learning and work re-entry. International Journal of Training and Development, 8(1), 54–72. Fenwick, T. (2008). Becoming an ecologically sustainable organisation: The importance of learning. Development and Learning in Organisations, 22(3), 28–30. Fuller, A., & Unwin, L. (2004). Expansive learning environments: Integrating organisational and personal development. In H. Rainbird, A. Fuller, & A. Munro (Eds.), Workplace learning in context. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. Gallie, D., Felstead, A., Green, F., & Henseke, G. (2018). Participation at work in Britain. London, United Kingdom: Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies, UCL Institute of Education. Kersh, N., & Evans, K. (2017). Exploring working places and self-directed learning spaces at work. In A. Ostendorf & C. Permpoonwiwat (Eds.), Workplaces as learning spaces. Innsbruck, Australia: Innsbruck University Press. Kolb, A., & Kolb, D. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(2), 193–212. Sadik, S. (2017). Non-permanent workers and their learning in a developmental state. In International Handbook on adult and lifelong learning education and learning. London: Palgrave. Sen, A. (1993) Capability and Well-being. In M. Nussbaum & A. Sen (eds.), Quality of Life (pp. 30–53). Oxford: Clarenden Press Taylor, M. (2017). Good work. The Taylor Review of Modern Work Practices. Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_ data/file/627671/good-work-taylor-review-modern-working-practices-rg.pdf

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Taylor, M., & Evans, K. (2009). Formal and informal training for workers with low literacy: Constructing an international dialogue between Canada and the UK. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 9, 37–52. http://eprints.ioe.ac.uk/18256/ Waite, E., Evans, K., & Kersh, N. (2014). The challenge of establishing sustainable workplace ‘Skills for Life’ provision in the UK: Organisational ‘strategies’ and individual ‘tactics’. Journal of Education and Work, 27(2) 199–219. Weaver-Hightower, M. B. (2008). An ecology metaphor for educational policy analysis. Educational Researcher, 37(3), 153–167. Wolf, A., & Evans, K. (2011). Improving literacy at work. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge.

12 FROM LEARNING ECOLOGIES TO ECOLOGIES FOR CREATIVE PRACTICE Norman Jackson

Introduction To perform any role requiring complex thinking and action involves being able to assess a situation, decide what action needs to be taken, and then pursue it using appropriate behaviours, tools, and methodologies; monitoring the effects and results of one’s actions; and responding to the feedback received (Eraut and Hirsh, 2007, p. 18). This process is at the core of what I am calling an ecology of practice that enables a person to create and achieve something of value within particular fields of knowledge and skill, contexts, situations, and circumstances. The core proposition underlying this chapter is that performing a complex role involves the creation of an ecology of practice that enables people to engage and interact with their environment and the things in it that matter to them and to solve domain-specific problems and communicate their learning through making and sharing new disciplinary artefacts. Their ecology of practice connects and immerses them—as whole sensing, thinking, and dynamic organisms—with their environment, and through skilled interactions, they take in the reaction of the environment and they are then changed (Dewey, 1916). I am using Ingold’s concept of environment, namely ‘the world as it exists and takes on meaning in relation to [the person], and in that sense it came into existence and undergoes development with [the person]’ (Ingold, 2000, p. 20). A second and related proposition is that creativity emerges while an ecology of practice is being enacted, through the ongoing purposeful interactions of a unique person with his or her unique environment as he or she strives to create value. When viewed from this perspective, our ecologies for achieving something of value constitute one of our most significant and fundamental acts of creativity.

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This chapter extends the concept of learning ecologies and eco-social systems outlined in Chapter 6 to the ‘place of practice’ or work environment. It explores and illustrates the propositions outlined earlier through the example of a geologist making a geological map. Although the representation is idealised and simplified, it contains enough realistic detail to give practical meaning to the abstract concept of an ecology of practice. The ecological perspective being offered is grounded in the proposition that ‘[a] properly ecological approach . . . is one that would take, as its point of departure, the whole-organism-in-itsenvironment. In other words, “organism plus environment” should denote not a compound of two things, but one indivisible totality’ (Ingold, 2000, p. 19). ‘[T] his totality is not a bounded entity but a process in real time: a process, that is, of growth or development’ (Ingold, 2000, p. 20).

Geologists and the eco-social system they inhabit To flourish, societies require people to educate and develop themselves to perform specialised roles, such as teachers, doctors, and engineers. Geologists are another example of a specialised role needed in a technologically advanced society. With their specialised knowledge and problem-solving skills, geologists are able to study the earth, its rocks and landscapes, and the processes that formed them using a wide variety of methods. Using particular tools and techniques, they are able to locate, map, and quantify mineral, water, and energy resources necessary to sustain societies and the global economy. The things they make, their maps and reports, document and communicate their understandings and are key cultural artefacts in their role as value creators in society. For example, they create value in the way they develop new knowledge about the rock and mineral resources of an area that can be made use of by society. A geologist works within a specialized eco-social system (see Chapter 6), the key features of which are outlined in Figure 12.1. They are employed by a commercial or public organisation whose purpose is to solve geological problems and create inventories of resources, for example, geological mapping and survey work, mineral exploration, mining, and engineering site investigations. Such organisations might be contracted to a larger organisation such as a mining or engineering company, investment group, government, or world bank. Through such relationships, the products of a geologist’s work (e.g., a geological map and report) might assume political or economic significance and possibly be subject to ideological and political forces in discursive regimes that the geologist will never know. Such complexity in the dynamics and evolution of an eco-social system, while important in an ecological sense, are beyond the scope of this narrative, which focuses primarily on the work of a geologist as a single agent operating at the rock face of the ecosystem. The geologist’s own organisation provides the immediate or proximal social-cultural environment within which work is undertaken, although much of the work will be conducted in the field, which could be in physical and even

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FIGURE 12.1 

The geologist’s eco-social system.

social-cultural environments that the geologist has never experienced before. Work is overseen by managers and supported by the organisation with the resources, tools, and facilities necessary to complete the work. Some of the specialist support might be outsourced to other service organisations in the ecosystem. The geologist is connected to a network of geologists inside and outside the organisation. They are likely to be a member of their professional body with its own standards, code of practice, and continuing professional development requirements. They will keep abreast of developments in their field by talking to peers, reading geological journals, attending conferences, and engaging with resources that are publicly available on the internet.

Becoming a geologist Geologists in formation become a part of this specialised eco-social system when they study geology at university. To perform the role of a geologist, people must develop a substantial body of domain-specific knowledge and skills so as to perceive (observe, recognise, interpret, and understand) the rocks, structures, or landscapes that they are studying. Their university programme provides them with opportunities for cognitive and practical development through real-world, or close to real-world, experiences. Learning extended over several years is achieved through a cognitive and practical apprenticeship. The cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, and Newman, 1989) enables learners to develop the knowledge and ability to perceive, imagine, and reason and to some extent, to act like a practitioner, whereas the practical apprenticeship enables learners to think and practise competently in the different environments and problem-solving situations in which practitioners work. Although a cognitive apprenticeship can

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be served in a classroom, a practical apprenticeship must be served in the authentic environments in which practitioners perform their role alongside more experienced practitioners. In higher education, cognitive and practical apprenticeships are facilitated by teachers employing the signature pedagogies of their discipline. Signature pedagogies ‘are types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways of educating future practitioners, and are used to transfer skills of how to think, to perform and to act with integrity in their professional work ’ (Shulman, 2005, p. 52). Such pedagogies encourage signature learning experiences that enable learners to learn and work in environments that are identical or similar to the environments they will encounter in their future work as practitioners. Through signature learning experiences, novice geologists develop the knowledge, skills, and perceptual awareness needed to make a geological map. Placed in an unfamiliar field environment, they learn how to interpret and assess geological problems, decide what to do, and act using appropriate tools and methodologies, mindful of the results of their actions and adjusting where necessary (Eraut and Hirsh, 2007, p. 18). Making a geological map involves novice geologists using tools such as a compass/clinometer, geological hammer, and hand lens to take measurements; collect, describe, and identify rock samples; and record their observations in a notebook and on a base map. Through a signature experience, learners make use of the knowledge and skills they have acquired through lectures and reading and develop new knowledge and skills in an experiential and embodied sense while in the company of peers and experienced teacher practitioners in the field. We might represent this signature pedagogy–signature learning experience dynamic as a learning ecology for the purpose of learning how to practice ( Jackson, 2016, 2018, and Figure 12.2). At their best, signature learning experiences are facilitated through knowledgeable and experienced teachers through a process of ‘guided participation’ (Baker, 1999) in which learners are introduced and immersed in the problems and environments of the field: [A] theory of ecological learning emphasizes the value of meaningful co-participation in communal tasks, mutual respect from supervisors and peers, and responsiveness from the entire social environment. It suggests that students are capable of being relatively independent and self-directed learners; when they are given freedom and sufficient guidance to participate meaningfully in the authentic activities of a practice, they do not necessarily need to be controlled by an educator. (Baker, 1999, p. 83) Through a combination of guidance, practical demonstrations, and modelling by the teacher; observing and talking to the teacher and peers; and the messy trial-and-error process of immersion in field-based experiences of trying to make

Ecologies for creative practice 181 3 RESOURCES

4 SPACES physical, social, intellectual, psychological, liminal, educational, instructional, facilitative,

information, knowledge (including tacit and embodied) materials, tools and other artefacts used in making and new artefacts that are made

2 AFFORDANCES for: conversation & discussion, consulting, exploring, possibilities for action in inquiring, investigating & experimenting, making TEACHER educational situations & playing, writing, imagining, experiencing, and in the using and reflecting & sense making, synthesis making of artefacts and integrative thinking with their mind and body, purposes and motivations, sensing, perceiving, feeling, caring, imagining, relating to, interacting PASTS FUTURES with, learners in an environment they share through particular pedagogical 5 PLACES practices 1 CONTEXTS some things can only be learned educational/pedagogical/ in a particular place. Places enable access to LEARNERS & institutional, resources, affordances, spaces and relationships. ENVIRONMENT social/cultural, personal Places encourage certain sorts of doing. They may require, inspire and facilitate making, performing, experimenting or other activities. 7 PROCESS/ACTIVITY/EXPERIENCE

6 RELATIONSHIPS

between teacher & learners, learners & learners learners & mentors or supervisors with ideas/concepts, materials, objects, tools, places, spaces and processes

pedagogical means through which learners are engaged with the teacher and their environment e.g., lecturing, discussing, tutoring, modelling, coaching, mentoring, supervision, guided participation, inquiry, projects, fieldwork and more

FIGURE 12.2  Teacher-learner-environment relationships and interactions in a learning ecology in which novice geologists are learning to make a geological map (after Jackson 2016, 2018). The components of the ecology (everything shown in this diagram) do not stand in isolation: they can and do connect and interfere and can be incorporated into each other.

a geological map, the novice learns not only to make a map but to create an ecology through which future geological maps can be made. The point at which students of geology makes their own geological map, with little or no supervision, is an important milestone on their journey to becoming geologists. It is the point at which they demonstrate that they can create and implement their own ecology of practice.

Ecology of practice for making a geological map Making a geological map is a domain-specific problem that geologists will encounter in their work. Learning and the development of new knowledge are core to the work of the geologist, and the framework developed for a learning ecology ( Jackson, 2016, 2018, and Figure 12.2) also contains the key features of a geologist’s ecology of practice (Figure 12.3). Geologists’ ecology of practice is lived in their unfolding present but is connected to their past experiences of making other geological maps and studying geology as a subject, and what they learn can be incorporated into future ecologies of practice. Its purpose is to accomplish proximal goals, to learn about and understand the geology of a particular area and make a geological map and report. Geologists’ ecology of practice comprises themselves, their mind and body, and all they can bring to the situation as they relate to and interact with their

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FIGURE 12.3 

A field geologist’s ecology of practice for making a geological map.

environment. Their ecology includes them interacting with a unique physical environment—the only place in the whole world where this particular map can be made. It contains the materials (rocks) and other resources, including the tools, they need to make the map. As they begin their project, they enter a liminal space (Land, Rattray, and Vivian, 2014; see also Chapter 4) with all the uncertainty of not knowing. Their ecology of practice affords the means of working in this liminal space and all the other intellectual and psychological spaces they need in order to progress to a higher level of understanding. Their ecology of practice includes their work activities and the methodologies and processes they employ using specific tools and technologies. Before they enter the field environment, they will conduct research into what is already known. They gather the resources they need, such as aerial or satellite photographs and topographic maps, and use these to make preliminary assessments of the geology. When they enter the field environment, they will physically cover the ground, gathering and processing lots of information through skilful actions such as locating the position of a rock outcrop on a topographic map or aerial photograph, measuring the dip and strike of bedding or other structures in rocks, breaking rocks and examining fresh surfaces with a hand lens and perhaps testing them with dilute hydrochloric acid, and photographing and sketching outcrops and annotating their sketches with observations and interpretations. In these actions they are searching for geological evidence that they can interpret and to which they can give meaning—meanings that have been learnt through years of study and practical experiences in a range of environments.

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Implementing an ecology of practice Making a geological map is like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle where most of the pieces are missing (there may be no rock physically to examine). The geologist’s learning project is one of continuous inquiry driven by curiosity and the need to understand the geology of the environment. Their inquiry requires all forms of reasoning and the use of imagination to speculate and project from the known into the unknown to try to visualise and make sense of the patterns geologists see in the rocks and landscape. Using all their cognitive abilities, they strive to understand their problem while interacting physically, intellectually, and emotionally with the physical spaces of their environment. As they work and learn, they construct, evaluate, and refine a narrative to account for the geological history of the area—a story that embodies the evidence they have carefully gathered and their own interpretations and theories and all the uncertainties and unknowns that drive further inquiry. They may well use sketches to help to visualise and explain their theories to themselves. They use tools such as a hammer, compass, clinometer, camera, notebook, base maps, and aerial photographs to help to locate themselves in the landscape, sample the rocks, observe, measure, and record information that is important and relevant to their map making. The physical and emotional experience of making a geological map and the accompanying mental processes of perceiving, imagining, reasoning, and reflecting enable them to build a picture of the geology and develop working hypotheses. Such concepts and theories influence future actions that enable them to test and evaluate their ideas and search for more pieces of their geological puzzle. In this way, ideas about the geology are tested, advanced, or abandoned as they create new meaning.

Ecology of making Making new cultural artefacts is at the core of the geologists’ meaning- and map-making process. We can view making a map as a process of spatially locating, connecting, integrating, and representing materials and structures observed on the ground in a two-dimensional artefact. The idea of connecting is fundamental to an ecology of practice, which involves finding patterns in lots of unconnected information and creating patterns with new meanings (Figure 12.2). Gauntlet (2011) offers three propositions about making as a process of connecting: Making is connecting because you have to connect things together (materials, ideas, or both) to make something new; Making is connecting because acts of creativity usually involve, at some point, a social dimension and connect us with other people; And making is connecting because through making things and sharing them in the world, we increase our engagement and connection with our social and physical environments. (Gauntlet, 2011, p. 2)

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These propositions are all relevant to the geologist’s map making, and the process of recognising and making connections is an important part of the ecological way a geologist thinks and acts. To make a geological map, geologists have to interact in a particular way with the environment. Their body alone limits their ability to interact with their environment, but they can, by using simple tools like a hammer and a hand lens, engage more deeply, for example, by breaking the hard rock and examining fresh unweathered surfaces with a hand lens. In this way, tools become an extension of the geologist’s body and mind. As they interact with their field environment, geologists think (perceive, imagine, and reason) and record and assemble the information in particular ways and in a particular time frame: they transform the information into an original synthesis—their geological map. Although the social element is not so visible in the fieldwork, their work will be connected to other geologists, cartographers, and editors as their maps and reports are prepared for publication, and ultimately, their maps will be used by others. Seeing and understanding that something has a possibility for connection, whether in advance or as the situation unfolds, are important in this process of making. Geologists do not connect random things; there is a thoughtful process going on that leads them to connect only things that are relevant and that can be used to develop their evolving understanding. They record accurately what they see on a field slip and in their notebooks (Figure 12.4). The process enables them

Geological artefacts created during the making of a geological map. (Left: field slip—a base map on which to make marks, symbols, and notes to represent the geology being observed or inferred. Top right: notebook for recording observations, sketching geological features, and jotting down ideas and interpretations. Bottom right: fair copy map produced from field slips and notebooks after analysing the field work.)

FIGURE 12.4 

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to perceive patterns and relate and synthesize disparate pieces of information to create a more detailed picture of their puzzle, which then enables them to search more purposefully for specific missing information. Notebooks containing field sketches can be like an artist’s sketch pad full of aesthetic and emotional value as well as scientific meaning and imaginative interpretations. After geologists have completed their work in the field, they reflect on what has been discovered as the day’s observations—recorded in field slips, notebooks, digital photographs, or video—are revisited and plotted on a ‘fair copy’ maps (Figure 12.4). Such reflection is an essential part of geologists’ map- and meaning-making process as they consolidate what has been learnt and develop or test theories and working models, and new insights and possibilities emerge as imagination and reasoning intermingle in this reflective space. Moving from the field to the office environment, these analytical and conceptual processes continue as rock samples are analysed and better understood. New artefacts and data are produced through these analytical processes. For example, geologists use microscopes to study the mineral composition, textures, and structures of the rocks they have sampled using transparent slices of rock (30 microns thick). Thin sections (Figure 12.5) are important artefacts that enable rocks and minerals to be understood, characterised, and classified. The geologist may also acquire geochemical or geochronological (dating) data for the rocks they have collected. Producing the geological map is essentially a drafting process in which information is carefully transferred from field maps and notebooks onto a new base map and digitized using the cartographic conventions and symbols of geological map making (Figure 12.5). The process of reworking this information can stimulate further thinking. But there is also an artistic element in the making of a map as pens or digital tools are handled and used to create the map. The final product is a beautiful artefact containing an accurate representation of the geology of the area explained in the image, the key, and an accompanying report about the geological history and mineral resources of an area. The map and

FIGURE 12.5  Artefacts created during a map-making project. Left: Thin section of a rock showing minerals and textures that enable the rock to be categorized and its formation understood. Middle: Digital map. Right: Geological report accompanying the map.

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report are cultural artefacts that can be used to make decisions about how a landscape and its resources might be used in the future and contain the affordance and information necessary for future action.

How does geologists’ creativity feature in their ecology of practice? This essay began with an assertion that an ecology of practice (or performance for that matter) is the means through which value is created. Such value is recognized in the performance itself and/or the artefacts that are produced. A geological map and report that explains the map are the domain-specific artefacts of the geologists’ wholesome physical, intellectual, and emotional relationship and purposeful interactions with their work environment and the materials (rocks and structures) that are in it, using the tools and other resources they have been trained to use. These artefacts are the physical manifestation of the value they create for themselves, their organization and any other clients, their disciplinary field, and ultimately society. In a geologist’s ecology of practice, there are many affordances for, and tangible expressions of, creativity. Some of these expressions emerge in the artefacts the geologists make to record and represent the geology they have observed in the field (field slips, notebooks, maps, and report), which can be used and valued by other people who have the knowledge to understand their meaning. Creativity is embodied in the narrative they create and communicate through their reports, which convey their understandings of the geological history of a particular area carrying their own interpretations, theories, and synthesis. Through words and illustrations, they create a story that both describes (represents symbolically) and accounts for the geology of the area, interpreting, hypothesising, connecting, and integrating the factual pieces of the geological puzzle into a new and sometimes original synthesis. However, much of geologists’ creativity is embedded in a narrative that is rarely told: the narrative of their making. Ingold has much to say on the making of cultural artefacts that grow through unique people interacting in a purposeful and goal-directed way with their social, cultural, physical, and psychological environment. [W]hat people do with materials [i.e., geological materials] . . . is to follow them, weaving their own lines of becoming into the texture of material flows comprising the lifeworld. Out of this, there emerge the kinds of things we call buildings, plants, pies and paintings [and in our narrative geological maps and reports]. (Ingold, 2010, p. 97) Creativity associated with the creative acts of people who are expert practitioners, for example the geologist in this narrative, is called pro-c creativity

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by Kaufman and Beghetto (2009), in their four-C categorisation of creativity. But also relevant to the geologist’s practice is what these authors term ‘mini-c’ creativity, the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions, and events made by individuals. Central to the definition of mini-c creativity is the dynamic, interpretative process of constructing personal knowledge and understanding within a particular sociocultural context. Field geologists will draw on their creativity as they engage in their challenge and create new value as they make new geologically meaningful artefacts. In his systems view of creativity, Csikszentmihalyi (1997) argued that ‘creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation. All three are necessary for a creative idea, product or discovery to take place’ (p. 6). Although this synthesis can be mapped onto the eco-social system within which the geologist works (Figure 12.1), it omits the important dimension of individuals working on particular challenges, within particular contexts, situations, and environments, which ultimately determines the nature of what emerges. The ecological perspective adds important dimensions to Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model. Geologists, like all knowledge workers, are generating and processing large amounts of complex information, and with such complexity, the devil is always in the detail. Such detail can only be adequately appreciated by geologists as they engage in their work. Only they will know when and why they connected things in a way that transformed the way they perceived something and created new meaning, triggering new imaginative ideas that spawned new actions and outcomes. Such detail usually remains hidden, which is why understanding creativity is so illusive. It might be revealed in the story of how the geologist makes their map. Rogers’s (1961) concept of a creative process—‘the emergence in action of a novel relational product growing out of the uniqueness of the individual on the one hand, and the materials, events, or circumstances of their life’ (p. 350)—is entirely consistent with the way creativity emerges during the making of a geological map. As the geologist moves through and perceives the landscape, interacting with the rocks and materials it contains and accessing flows of information through their senses, they interpret what they see and improvise their next moves. [Geologists] . . . are itinerant wayfarers. They make their way through the [landscape] bringing forth their work as they press on with their own lives. It is in this very forward movement that the creativity of the work is to be found. To read creativity ‘forwards’ entails a focus not on abduction but on improvisation. . . . To improvise is to follow the ways of the world, as they open up, rather than to recover a chain of connections, from an end-point to a starting-point, on a route already travelled. (Ingold, 2010, p. 97)

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Ecology of integrative thinking An ecological model of practice must engage with the thinking aspect of practice. When we explore and try to solve a problem, challenge, or opportunity, we use our perception, imagination, and critical ways of thinking in a synergistic interplay. Pendleton-Jullian and Brown (2016) represent thinking as a continuum (Figure 12.6) in which imagination has the potential to connect to both perception and reasoning in a pragmatic way. In our framework for the pragmatic imagination, the role of the imagination has expanded from a simple imagination versus reason dichotomy to an entire spectrum of activity from perception, through reasoning, speculation, experimentation to the free play imagination we associate with artistic creativity (Pendleton-Jullian and Brown, 2016, p. 73) Through their ecology of practice, the elements of a geologist’s cognition and bodily actions work together in a merry dance through field, laboratory, and office environments, through many different activities (skilful mapping, observing and recording, gathering and processing of complex information, writing, cartographic drawing, discussions with peers, and much more). The knowledge and understanding developed through these interactions are codified in the domain-specific artefacts that are made. Through the challenge of making a geological map, the intermingling of perception (observation), imagination (speculation and conceptualization), reasoning (analysis and judgement), reflection, and emotion offers endless possibilities for geologists to make sense of the world they are attending and create value, in the form of new meaning, which they communicate through the artefacts they make.

FIGURE 12.6 

The cognitive spectrum (Pendleton-Jullian and Brown, 2016, p. 73).

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Interactionist (ecological) model of creativity Dewey (1916, 1934) believed that action and creativity are brought together through human experience, defined precisely by the interaction between a person and his or her environment: When we experience something, we act upon it, we do something with it; then we suffer or undergo the consequences. We do something to the thing and then it does something to us in return (Dewey, 1916, p. 146) Dewey developed this argument into a model to describe what happens when a person interacts with his or her environment to create new value, which Glaveanu et al. (2013) summarise in these terms: Action starts . . . with an impulsion and is directed toward fulfillment. In order for action to constitute experience though, obstacles or constraints are needed. Faced with these challenges, the person experiences emotion and gains awareness (of self, of the aim, and path of action). Most importantly, action is structured as a continuous cycle of “doing” (actions directed at the environment) and “undergoing” (taking in the reaction of the environment). Under-going always precedes doing and, at the same time, is continued by it. It is through these interconnected processes that action can be taken forward and become a “full” experience. (Glaveanu et al., 2013, pp. 2–3) These authors argue that creativity should be viewed from an interactionist perspective. Drawing on Dewey’s interactional model, they examined creative activity within five domains (i.e., art, design, science, scriptwriting, and music composition), exploring the generalities and specificities of the doing-undergoing cycle in each domain and across domains. The study revealed ‘a patchwork of similarities and differences between the five domains’. Table 12.1 summarises the characteristics of interaction and undergoing identified for the field geologist using the Glaveanu et al. (2013) methodology. The creativity of the geologist is involved throughout the process of making, but it is so embedded in the whole practice that it is well-nigh impossible to isolate and say that this particular bit of thinking and action is creative and this is not. Ingold (2010, p. 91) argues that, ‘Rather than reading creativity “backwards”, from a finished object to an initial intention in the mind of an agent, this entails reading it forwards, in an ongoing generative movement that is at once itinerant, improvisatory and rhythmic’. The synthesis of this generative movement is the meaningful artefacts resulting from the geologist’s ecology of practice. These artefacts ‘emerge in action’ as ‘novel relational product[s]’ (Rogers, 1961) growing out of the ecology of practice. Thus, creativity does not

190  Norman Jackson TABLE 12.1  Applying the interactionist model developed by Dewey (1916, 1934) and

used as an analytical tool by Glaveanu et al., (2013, Table 3, p. 12) TRANSFORMATION

Elements of Dewey’s Model

Field geologist

Impulsion

To solve a geological problem/task Not knowing/understanding Physical terrain/accessibility Weather Budget Skilled map making using methods/tools/means of the geologist CREATION OF NEW VALUE Production of artefacts, e.g., geological map, notebook, reports CREATION OF NEW VALUE Learning and developing, becoming a better version of self CREATION OF NEW VALUE Company/colleagues/clients (Dis)satisfaction, frustration, anxiety, joy, pride, and many more feelings as the geological map is made and work progresses towards feelings of fulfilment

Obstacle(s)

Doing Undergoing (material)

Undergoing (personal)

Undergoing (social) Emotions

happen by chance, but emerges because the creators—indivisible with their environment—weave together particular pieces of information, ideas, and material things to create new meaning. The artefacts produced are the physical manifestations of the new value that has been created. Through their own unique history, learning, actions, and behaviours, geologists shape their environment, but they are also shaped by their environment and the unfolding problems it poses, as they repeatedly perceive, imagine, and try to solve them: ‘[E]very practitioner has to improvise his or her own passage through the array of tasks the performance entails . . . the wellsprings of creativity lie, not inside people’s heads but in their attending upon a world in formation’ (Ingold, 2018, p. 124).

Concluding remarks The general argument underlying this chapter has been that anyone performing a role that requires them to learn, in order to understand and deal with the complex information and situations they encounter or create, develops an ecology of

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practice that enables them to interact in a meaningful way with their environment. In the case of field geologists, their ecology of practice enables them to engage, through their skilled actions and use of tools, with the domain-specific problem of making a geological map. It also enables them to harness all their senses, cognition, and psychological processes in their map-making experience, an experience that is fundamental to their identity as geologists. As they walk through the landscape, each step, and where it takes them, is a development of the one before and a preparation for the next because they do not know what they might encounter (Ingold, 2010, p. 98). Complex sensory experiences and intense intermingling of the physical, intellectual, imaginative, and emotional states of being enable geologists to form deep relationships with their work, the place (the landscape and the rocks in it), the tools they are using to interact with the landscape, and the artefacts that unfold as they work. Their emotions contribute to the investment they are making in their own meaning-making process and encourage feelings such as pride, satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and joy as they pursue and accomplish their goals. This emotional investment on the part of geologists is contrary to the principle of scientific objectivity, which requires scientists to remain emotionally detached from what they study (Ingold, 2018, and personal communication). But perhaps this emotional investment is necessary in order to create the strong intrinsic motivational forces that enable geologists to sustain their engagement with their challenge and to think and act creatively. In this way, an ecology of practice enables practitioners to blend their scientific and artistic ways of thinking and being to create new value that is recognised by peers and other knowledgeable practitioners in their field. Ecologies of practice are thus the means by which people integrate themselves, while connecting and relating themselves to the world they are attending. Through a practice ecology, scientific knowledge and methods, imagination, past experience, and current action are creatively combined: Science, when it becomes art, is both personal and charged with feeling; its wisdom is born of imagination and experience, and its manifold voices belong to each and every one who practises it. . . . And where scientific pathfinding joins with the art of inquiry . . . to grow into knowledge of the world is at the same time to grow into the knowledge of one’s own self. (Ingold, 2018, p. 71). This creative process of growth is what Ingold (2014, 2018) calls ‘undergoing’, a process that was first recognised by Dewey (1916, 1934). The ecologies we create in order to achieve something difficult and challenging are the means through which we actualise ourselves and fulfill our own potentials as we strive to create new value in the world we are attending, and in the process, we recreate ourselves as a direct consequence of our experience: we become the better person we strive to be.

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Acknowledgements I am deeply indebted to my geology school teacher Harry Miller, who started me on a pathway that led me here. I would also like to thank Professor Tim Ingold, for his perceptive insights and suggestions, and my co-editor Ron Barnett.

References Baker, B. K. (1999). Learning to fish, fishing to learn: Guided participation in the interpersonal ecology of practice. Clinical Law Review, 6(1), 1–84. Retrieved from https://papers. ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2104109 Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Newman, S. E. (1989). Cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching the craft of reading, writing, and mathematics. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser (pp. 453–494). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York, NY: Macmillan. Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York, NY: Penguin. Eraut, M., & Hirsh, W. (2007). The significance of workplace learning for individuals, groups and organisations. SKOPE Monograph 9. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Department of Economics. Gauntlet, D. (2011). Making is connecting:The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press. Glaveanu, V., Lubart, T., Bonnardel, N., Botella, M., de Biaisi, P-M., Desainte, C., Zenasni, F. (2013). Creativity as action: Findings from five creative domains. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 176. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00176 Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment. Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. New York, NY: Routledge. Ingold, T. (2010). The textility of making. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34, 91–102. Ingold, T. (2014). The creativity of undergoing. Pragmatics & Cognition, 22(1), 124–139. Ingold, T. (2018). Anthropology as education. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. Jackson, N. J. (2016). Exploring learning ecologies. Chalk Mountain: Lulu. Jackson, N. J. (2018). Ecological perspectives on learning to practice in the arts in health and arts therapies fields In J. Taylor & C. Holmwood (Eds.), Learning as a creative and developmental process in higher education: A therapeutic arts approach and its wider application. New York, NY: Routledge Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four C model of creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13(1), 1–12. Land, R., Rattray, J., & Vivian, P. (2014). Learning in the liminal space: A semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education, 67(2), 199–217. Retrieved from http://dro.dur. ac.uk/13381/1/13381.pdf Pendleton-Jullian, A., & Brown, J. S. (2016). Pragmatic imagination. Retrieved from http:// www.pragmaticimagination.com Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Shulman, L. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134, 52–59.

13 LEARNING IN THE CAT’S CRADLE Weaving learning ecologies in the city Keri Facer, Magdalena Buchczyk, Liz Bishop, Helen Bolton, Zehra Haq, Jackie Gilbert, Gideon Thomas, Jessica Tomico, and Xiujuan Wang

Introduction In 2016, two of us, Keri and Magda, set out to explore the question, ‘How does a city learn?’ focusing on the city of Bristol in the United Kingdom.1 Over the following 2 years, we walked the city, photographed the city, and talked with organisers of adult learning, conveners of protests, leaders of elite city institutions, refugees, longstanding inhabitants, artists, medics, city farmers, older people’s groups, parents, carers, and social activists (amongst others). In the process, we have learnt the hubris of our original question as well as its generative, provocative value and have come to see learning in the city as a deeply entangled meshwork of social, material, and discursive practices (Facer and Buchczyk, 2019). Reading Donna Haraway (2016) has drawn us to the metaphor of the cat’s cradle to help us make sense of these experiences in Bristol. 2 In invoking the image of the cat’s cradle—a string game played between hands in which different figures can be made by knotting and twisting the string over different fingers—Haraway invites us to see how different forces and elements can be entangled to create new realities. In thinking through the image of the cat’s cradle for this essay (Figure 13.1), we are beginning to see the learning ecology of the city as emerging from the personal and collective interweaving of multiple sociomaterial threads and practices; such threads create dense knots of activity and practice, as well as hollows and gaps, scarcity and sparseness. These activities and absences depend on and tug on seemingly distant resources. 3 Within the overarching ecological metaphor of this book, the idea of the cat’s cradle draws attention to the individual trajectories of learners and how their learning ecologies overlap, interconnect, and influence what is going on

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FIGURE 13.1  Cat’s Cradle. (Image courtesy of Will Luo; available under Creative Commons Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0; https://tinyurl.com/y824wkvq.)

around them One person’s trajectory bends and pulls another’s towards it or creates the conditions for others’ trajectories to connect. The image of the cat’s cradle emphasizes the core concept of interdependence that is central to the concept of learning ecology. It visualizes how individual threads of experience come to overlap and rely upon each other, to become part of each other’s realities. The language of emergence in complexity theory, which when too simplistically translated from the natural sciences tends to treat all actions as equivalent, is here understood as a located, embodied, and specific process in which individual lives come together to take the shape of unique patterns or distinctive ecosystems. From this perspective, we are interested in tracing how learning ecologies are not standardized systems or forms, but enmeshed practices with distinctive histories, in unique places. Our aim, therefore, in this chapter, is to give a sense of the highly textured and interdependent experiences of a city as it is inhabited by different individuals as learners and educators. In particular, we seek to trace how individuals weave through the city and explore how these seemingly disparate threads are connected. In other words, we are interested in how they come, through these tracings, to create what we might call a knot in the metaphor of the cat’s cradle, but which might be understood as a niche in ecological terms (Geels, 2010), holding and protecting a cluster of different experiences.

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Critically, our perspective suggests that these patterns are not the autonomous traces of individual agents, whether technologies or people, but that the learning ecology of a city comprises sites in which key actors engage in an intentional interweaving of people and resources precisely to create moments of encounter and interdependence. Here, then, we may begin to ask whether the ecological metaphor that we draw from the sciences is adequate to grasping the intentional practices of weaving in human structures, or whether it needs to be further developed in the social sciences to envisage the role of what we have come to playfully imagine as the spiders in the ecosystem—knitting, weaving, threading together the trajectories of inhabitants, making and remaking niches within the wider ecosystem, which the city inhabitants in turn come to make and remake. This chapter is written in collaboration with a group of volunteers from the city who agreed to accompany us on this exploration as fellow researchers. Liz, Helen, Jackie, Gideon, Jessica, and Xiujuan worked with Magda to develop a set of personal inquiries that resonated with their own experiences and interests in learning and education.4 We also worked with Zehra Haq who invited us to collaborate with two groups facilitated by the Dhek Bhal community organisation. These are friendship groups for older Asian men and women that are convened to provide support in relation to issues of social well-being, health, and loneliness. In this essay, we weave together these inquiries with our sustained ethnographic fieldwork over the past 2 years5 and with a set of contemporary theoretical framings of learning in the city that have opened up to us over this period, in order to explore the learning ecology of the city. Our interweaving in this essay takes the form, first, of a collage (Vaughan, 2005; see also Harding, 1996, and Lather, 1995) that acts as an invocation of the physical, material, emotional, and symbolic practices of learning that we have encountered. Next, we reflect on the practices and people that seem to create intense knots in the cat’s cradle, niches in the ecosystem, and patterns of inclusion and exclusion. We conclude by considering what these processes might mean for those who are creating city-scale plans for education both here in our own city and internationally, in particular, at a time when the idea of the ‘learning city’ is taking shape in international networks and when adult education is being framed within the simplistic logic of economic instrumentalism (Tuckett, 2017). In writing in this way, we want to do justice to the ecology of the learning city as a dynamic process and a constantly emerging complex system (Brenner and Schmid, 2015; Amin and Thrift, 2002; McFarlane, 2011). We want to explore how to make our writing adequate to the task of gesturing towards a reality that will necessarily exceed anything we can write down; and towards the necessarily unfinished nature of any attempt to capture the city in a single text. And in so doing, we also want to give a feeling of the relational, embodied, material, affective, and entangled learning ecologies that we have witnessed.

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Weaving the cat’s cradle: ‘Richness, diversity, hidden things’ Abundant ecologies We are not the first to inquire into the complexity and richness of learning in this city. South of the river, there is a straw-built, rubber-roofed, eco-friendly building at the heart of one of the most economically deprived areas of the city: a former garden estate, fallen on hard times, where the residents are mainly white Bristolians who have lived in the area for generations. The building was willed into existence by the strength, political skills, and imagination of two women, Carolyn Hassan and Penny Evans, who have created a centre where digital arts and creative practice are nurtured by and with local residents of all ages, making projects of international standing as well as developing confidence, knowledge, and professional expertise. This centre physically embodies the 20-year fight of these two women and their collaborators to create opportunities for rich educational experiences and meaningful work in this area. Over a decade ago, they collaborated with the artist Suzanne Lacy to develop what they called a ‘university of local knowledge’. Penny observes: [W]e were starting from a place where people don’t think they have knowledge, so you ask somebody and you say ‘What do you know?’ and most people would say ‘I don’t know’. For me it was really important to have those conversations to talk to people, to allow them to realise some of those knowledges that they did have. So a young mum budgeting, a woman who looks after her disabled sister, you know what knowledge has she got. You’ve got older residents who are custodians of very expensive classic cars which you wouldn’t necessarily equate with Knowle West. There’s a huge . . . there’s a very strong link between the urban and the rural in Knowle West, you can see the countryside all around the area. A lot of young boys still go out rabbiting, people know what a ‘lurcher’ is, people have in their back gardens chickens, there’s a lot of horses that ride up and down, young girls on horses. And so there’s this kind of abundance, but equally there’s also a lot of budget shops. So you’ve got the two sides always operating. And you can’t . . . within a community, within a space you have . . . it is complex and it’s not about one community reflected in one particular way. And that’s what we wanted to get across really is the richness, embodied knowledge, diversity, you know the hidden things. On the other side of the city, the coordinator of a drop-in day centre for refugee women takes time to talk to Magda between constant requests for help, information, and advice. Pressed on all sides by growing demand, she explains how she came to the city as a highly qualified refugee herself but whose qualifications were not recognized and how she came to know and value the centre as a place of friendship and advice. A skilled social worker who combines her time

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between these activities and academic research, she now manages the volunteers for the 1 day a week that the centre can afford to be open, creating conditions for encounters and support that might open up new pathways for the women who pass through their doors, often with their children. At the heart of their practice is creating opportunities for the hidden talents of these women to be used and recognized: [T]hey say ‘Okay keep me busy’, you know especially asylum seekers, imagine if they have nothing, they are not in the system, they are outside . . . asylum seekers, the only contact they have is the Home Office, isn’t it? Waiting for an interview or . . . you know, it is very traumatic to be an asylum seeker. So anyway, and they really need to get . . . to feel they are used, they are appreciated, they have something to give . . . you know this the natural human interaction that anybody would need. [ . . . ] So the resources as I said are the human beings with the knowledge, expertise, for example the teachers, they have a teaching background, that’s why we try to allocate people only who have taught before. So it is the same with the kitchen. So with a lot of support we try make healthy food for people you know [ . . . ] it’s very cheap. And the teachers they bring their own resources, many of them they have their own curriculum, you know . . . [ . . . ] . . . they have expertise in it. It’s the same with the kitchen [ . . . ] they have the expertise in what it is, it’s good. In another part of town, Magda and Keri sit with a group of women, long-term inhabitants of the city, many of whom arrived from South Asia in the 1970s and 1980s, as they work with us to sew a quilt of their learning experiences (Figure 13.2). As we sew together, we talk. We are told stories of arriving in a strange country with three children, of a husband dying, of bringing up children alone by working all hours that could be found, and of those children having been encouraged to get a good education and now living across the country as doctors and accountants. As we talk, a woman sews ‘I learnt the value of a good education’ into the quilt. We have another conversation with an older woman, who talks with laughter of the role of technology in transforming her conversations and interactions. ‘How do you learn?’ Keri asks. Into the quilt, she sews, ‘I look at my iPad and it helps me understand things’. We talk of learning how to cook at home from mothers and grandmothers, of the role of religion and the mosque, of the personal capacities needed to persist, and of the value of formal education. Across many lives, the stories of making and listening, of caring and working are knitted together. Stories of life experiences and challenges are interwoven in a way that makes a nonsense of those unhelpfully rigid categories of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ education, a rich personal ecology navigated and shaped by deep personal commitments to children, to shared values, and, for some, to faith.

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Learning experiences quilt. (Image courtesy of the Reinventing Learning Cities Project, Bristol. https://learningcitiesproject.org/)

FIGURE 13.2 

Navigating through the city’s learning ecologies The men’s group gathers in the same building, at a different time, and with us makes a series of short films about their experiences of moving to Bristol and making a life here. Here, stories are told of travel overland by train from Pakistan to England with four children or by daredevil motorcycle. Of arriving as a student in the 1970s, with nowhere to stay and no friends. Of arriving with £2 in your pocket and being able to buy a house 6 months later through hard work (Figure 13.3). Of making longstanding successful careers in medicine, the Post Office, industry, and the Department of Employment. Of climbing the Avon Gorge without ropes or helmet. And stories are told too of deep loss, of grief at the recent death of a beautiful wife, of acting as carer for a loved and very sick wife at the age of 84, of loneliness, and of the importance of the group as a network of support, respite, laughter, and deep knowledge about how to live well. And as the conversations happen, there are jokes, respect, and sadness, and Zehra watches from the side and interjects with support as the conversations flow. Zehra, as first and only Chief Executive of Dhek Bhal, the organisation that we are working with, has nurtured these groups, found funding, and set up systems and structures to make the organisation possible, and he continues to fiercely fight for the needs and interests of the South Asian community in the city. New arrivals to the city today as students and workers tell a different story. Xiujuan worked with Magda to develop an autoethnography of her own experiences and learning practices and shared these as a set of slide images and headings.

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FIGURE 13.3  Story told by one participant in the study. (Image courtesy of the Reinventing Learning Cities Project, Bristol.)

The headings, captured here in Table 13.1, show the rich diversity of her experiences in the weeks of her recording, showing just what complexity is involved in the learning life of one individual. The complexity and richness of the personal ecology of learning that Xiujuan draws upon to enter a new material and cultural environment are apparent in Table 13.1, as she draws on the human, technological, and cultural resources TABLE 13.1  Xiujuan’s experiences of learning and learning practices

What have I learnt? About the United Kingdom English language skills Research and learning skills Work-related skills Food and cooking Driving Yoga Art

Where did my learning happen?

What resources did I use?

What were the main methods I used?

At home At work In the library In training/ workshop rooms In the yoga studio In museums In parks In shops On the streets On the road Other places

Computer and internet iPad and iPhone TV Books Magazines Newspapers Training workshops, events Resources in parks, museums Others (advent calendar)

Online courses Website and online videos Talking to people Attending events Participating in workshops Playing and making things Practising and taking part in activities (driving) Spending time with Tom Learning journey notes and photos

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available to her both in the place where she finds herself and in the interstices of the digital world. Gideon, talking with five young professionals who recently arrived in the city as teachers, as graduate students, and as travellers, talks of how they came with little knowledge of the city and about what they did to learn to settle in. There are new social and material actors at play in the learning ecology here, different from those that populate the stories told by the men of Dhek Bhal in recollection of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. No houses are being bought in 6 months in today’s overpriced housing market to provide a firm foundation for growth and development. Instead, these new arrivals move through different Airbnbs, renting spaces and getting to know different areas before settling down. They use Facebook to find people and activities that chime with their interests. They turn to neighbourhood action groups and tourist information, taking buses around the city. Well (enough) resourced, they can travel and make the most of what they find in the city. Their personal learning ecologies can expand across the different spaces they move through. They have come from different nations, moving from Canada or Italy to Bristol; this city may be home for now but perhaps not always. A memory from our conversation at Dhek Bhal comes back, a story of the couple who arrived from India in the 1970s after getting married, who had simply planned a ‘quick look around’ at the city where the husband had studied, and then who stayed for a lifetime. Liz’s interviews talk of what happens when mobility such as this is not possible or constrained, where the different threads of the learning ecology cannot be knitted together through movement. Interviewing eight young women newly returned to study as teaching assistants after having children, she recounts the difficulties they faced of getting into college because of their caring responsibilities and the transport issues they faced. Parking and the difficulties of paying for parking are lived material constraints on what they can do; an abrupt material limit to the personal expansion of their learning ecology. They talk of how their further education course offers trips to parts of the city—the city farm, the environment centre—that they had never visited before. From these conversations, comes a picture of a city that has a rich learning ecology that remains inaccessible if there is also nothing in that ecosystem (here transport, childcare, time) to enable its exploration. Connect this observation to a comment from one of Helen’s interviewees, a city inhabitant who has been here for over 30 years: I was just thinking back to when I first came to Bristol . . . you had all sorts of courses which were local. People could get there of all age groups. It’s all been centralised into the colleges that are taking these up and then it costs, everything, you know. [ . . . ] They’ve removed a lot of that to make it more viable, they’ve centralised everything into City of Bristol College and Filton College and all these colleges but it’s the opportunity to just walk, actually, for older people who need to travel, to just walk to

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somewhere local to learn something, to meet other people to learn. That’s gone now, except the Kingfisher cafe. These conversations prompt us to examine the city’s plans. The Bristol City Council Integrated Education and Capital Strategy (2015) states the following: It is important to ensure that the development of the Adult Skills & Learning estate meets strategic expectations, including the following Delivery Priorities: a. To develop local provision to meet the needs of learners in an area/ Neighbourhood b. To ensure, wherever feasible, ‘good’ local provision is within a 10–15 minute walk (with a buggy) for all children/families. The Department for Education (2019, p. 5) guidance on transport to education and training for people aged 16 and over states the following: The planning of transport provision at a local level should take the following into account: •

young people are now required to stay in education or training until their 18th birthday. Local authorities are responsible for promoting the effective participation in education and training of young people who are subject to the duty to participate.

And here we start to pay attention to different elements of the learning ecology—to regulatory systems, the financial resources available, and in particular, the transport system. And we note that the bus system in the city is run by a private company whose website states that ‘travelling with First around Bristol, Bath and the West has never been easier’. And here we observe that a weekly travel ticket is around £23.80. A single person under 25 on state benefits receives approximately £68 per week as their total income. Getting into town from many of the poorer areas of the city, on a day with no traffic, is scheduled to take half an hour. Therefore, the learning ecology of the city, from this perspective, has features that actively reject and inhibit some inhabitants; it is being woven into a shape and a structure that only those with money and transport can access.

Embodiment People are not the only educators in the city. Magda spent time with activists who were trying to tell the city’s hidden stories of slavery through protests and events that draw attention to the role of the slave trader Colston, whose name is inscribed on city streets, statues, and concert halls in ways that provide an unwanted and hostile public pedagogy. The learning ecology of the city here

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FIGURE 13.4 

New allotment scheme. (Courtesy of Jacqueline Gilbert.)

takes material form: it forms a culture in which whiteness is codified as dominant and in which histories of exploitation have been silenced. Here, race and racism play a role in shaping the learning ecology of the city, threads whose traces can be followed to structural inequalities in the formal educational system, to the histories of successful resistance to inequality, and to the powerful explosion of musical culture that characterises the city. The materiality of the learning ecology is also visible in those environments where inhabitants are making a physical connection with land, even in the heart of an urban environment. Jackie studied the participants in a new allotment scheme in the city, where land is being opened up for community growing use (Figure 13.4). Here, she discovered the entanglement of local and global processes embodied in the practices of making and growing food. The participation in just this one setting offers a rich, multisensory experience where the processes of developing land, tending plants, cooking, and eating are all combined with the sharing of skills and social exchanges with other volunteers. There are woodsmoke and compost, polytunnels, and nuts roasted in a firepit. Jessica, who is documenting the process of encountering the city with a toddler, describes it as ‘a love affair with our local and surrounding communities as an area to live and learn in as a young family’. She describes the daily dialogues and conversations that are prompted by the colours of a mural or a local playground. She traces the encounters that she and her 2-year-old experience as they walk through the city parks, through the streets, in the free museums, taking up the invitations in the local area to visit the mosque or the city farm (Figure 13.5).

Nurturing the ecosystem At one of the city farms, talking with the chief executive there, Keri hears of the deep intertwining of resources, people, animals, and regulation that such a place entails, a deep knot in the meshwork of the city, a thriving and complex niche in the ecosystem, a dense entangling of myriad threads and personal learning ecologies in one place. He talks of the child care and nursery facilities on the site; of the volunteers who come to the farm for many reasons, from looking for

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City Farm Cows Learning Discussion: Cows, What noise cows make, Baby cows are called calves, What colours are these cows, What do cows eat and drink

FIGURE 13.5 

City farm. (Courtesy of Jessica Tomico.)

social networks to purposeful work, who may be recovering from mental health issues or other illness; of the community garden and allotments; of the talks and drama sessions; of the development of new information boards and educational resources; of the café where local artists, young parent groups, and workers on laptops now congregate; of the football clubs. And he talks about what is needed to make such a place work—the endless search for funding from different charities, trusts, and foundations; the negotiation and navigation of local council procurement processes; the lobbying needed to ensure investment in preventative mental health activities rather than remedial residential costs. He talks of the way that such negotiations involve understanding the national and local government regulations that make dealing with people when they fall ill a statutory responsibility, but how that catching them beforehand is an optional extra that gets picked up by the voluntary and charitable sector. And as we walk round the farm, looking at the polytunnels and the new outdoor kitchen with its wood-fired pizza oven, designed to allow visitors to make the connection between food production and consumption, we talk of just what it takes in emotional, intellectual, and physical labour to create spaces such as this. Here, a tangled knot of powerful learning draws together place, people, animals, local regulatory systems, treasury guidance, the decisions of local councillors, the smells and sounds of a farm lit with a low golden light on a summer evening, leaves glowing green, and traffic passing by the perimeter. Steve talks

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FIGURE 13.6 

Hamilton House. (Image courtesy of the Reinventing Learning Cities

Project.)

of how the land is on a long lease from the council, how they have had to fight recently to extend the tenancy, and how this cannot be extended further than 30 odd years at present so that there is always a risk of the place disappearing—all the buildings, gardens, and facilities created by volunteer labour and charitable donations, reverting again to the city in a climate of rampant demand for housebuilding and an urgent search for income for the city. And now we make the connection to other places that are more immediately under threat. In September 2017, we ran an exhibition at Hamilton House (Figure 13.6), home to Coexist, a co-working space that hosted hundreds of community, arts, social enterprises, and dance classes; drumming groups; co-operatives; and bike repair facilities. A year later, we heard that this year will be their last in the space. The landlord wants the building back now that this community has proven the potential of that previously notoriously downbeat area of the city to act as a magnet for young, creative types seeking lucrative accommodation. The Coexist community could stay, the landlord offers, if it can find £10 million to fund the purchase. This proves impossible.

Ecological implications Urban scholars describe the city as a gathering, a dynamic process, an assemblage of social, material, technological, and discursive elements (Amin and Thrift, 2002; Brenner and Schmid, 2015). The learning ecology of the city

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is no less complex. What, then, are the theoretical resources that might help us think through what we have noticed through this collage of experiences? Traditions in anthropology and cultural geography would draw our attention to the practices of dwelling in the city, to the messages and guidance received from the very materiality of the city streets of how to live, to behave, and to interact and the ways in which the walking and movement and interactions of inhabitants in turn shape and co-constitute the city (Ingold, 2010; De Certeau, 1984; McFarlane, 2011). Scholarship in public pedagogy draws attention to the processes by which cities create moments of wonder and engagement that open spaces for the body to learn differently, what Ellsworth (2005) calls a ‘pedagogic hinge’. These are moments in which artists, architects, and curated events in public spaces from murals to museums can create an experience of disruption and encounter with new ideas in which the ‘learning self ’ is invoked. This is a moment of opening up to a sudden awareness that what the inhabitant previously knew might in fact be different from the way things are. Here, the learning ecology is characterized as stimulating a moment of dissonance, in which the inhabitant is provoked, disrupted, or invited to change and come into being in a different way in interaction with others who are also, in this perspective, newcomers, who are also simultaneously invited into being and becoming subjects (Ford, 2013, drawing on Biesta, 2006). This moment of learning in the city through meaningful encounter with others, in which the recognition of the other is required, can be understood as a shift between simply occupying the ‘habitat’ of a city designed by others to becoming active ‘inhabitants’ of a city, actively shaping and reshaping what a city can be (Ford, 2013)—a learning ecology, then, not as ‘context’ but as site of co-constitution. These different sets of literature encourage us to see the unruly, sociomaterial gatherings of the city that we have gestured towards in this essay as elements of a learning ecology in which learning and citizenship are deeply entangled. In this ecology, its inhabitants are not ‘adult learners’ needing to be oriented towards particular instrumental ends, but are coming, through living in this ecology, to shape different ideas of what it means to inhabit a city as citizens and in which the city, in turn, is creating conditions and resources that frame what that might mean. What is often missing from these analyses is attention to the way in which the learning practices of the city are at times actively curated, nurtured, and shaped by individuals and organisations with a particular normative aspiration, and how these are facilitated or actively impeded by particular structural constraints in the ecosystem. In other words, returning to our metaphor of the cat’s cradle, we turn our attention to how particular patterns are being intentionally woven, sometimes despite the prevailing values and cultures of the learning ecology of the city, and what it takes to achieve this. From our encounters in the city, we notice that there are people and places that are actively making particularly dense meshworks of learning—the city farm, the refugee centre, the allotment site, and the media centre. These knots or nodes

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might be understood, from an ecological perspective, as niches that serve to protect and nurture diversity and to create welcoming encounters between inhabitants. Such knots are, we contend, critical to nurturing the overall health of the learning ecology of the city. They are, however, dependent on other aspects of the overall ecology, and understanding these interdependencies matters. Their first dependency relates to the question of land and rights to land in the city. Creating dense knots of learning such as the city farm, the media centre, or the refugee centre requires land and buildings, and the confidence that these places will be secure over the longer term, to justify the investment and care that is being put into them by the educators and volunteers who are making these places. In a climate of gentrification and development speculation, such land rights and resources are increasingly under threat. Planning law and city plans that inform and defend such spaces may be as important a part of a learning ecology, then, as museums and schools. The second dependency relates to transport. As we have seen, the capacity of individuals to engage with and explore the learning ecology of the city is in large part predicated upon mobility as a means of coming to learn about, know, and dwell in the different ecological niches of the city. A city in which individuals struggle to move around to access the resources that are available is one that is unlikely to create thriving ecologies for learning. Transport companies, and those who regulate them, then, can be seen as key actors in the creation of a thriving learning ecology. The third dependency relates to the capacity of those nurturing these knots and niches to care. The creation of rich ecosystems for learning requires trust, the development of relationships, and care and responsibility for those entering the space. An environment for learning—understood as that experience of coming into being, of learning to be and become—is not one that is achieved through short-term instrumental investments in pursuit of certification. Rather, it depends on someone taking care, as Nel Noddings argues, to listen, to attend to what is happening, and to open up possibilities. This is the care shown in welcoming and creating meaningful opportunities for volunteers in the farm; in creating spaces for conversations for refugees; and in seeing the talents and knowledge of communities long ignored by formal education. The ecosystem that welcomes these groups does not simply ‘emerge’; it is actively and attentively knitted together. And those who are doing the knitting together, the spiders weaving and connecting the multiple threads of the city (the regulations, the land, the transport, the people, the knowledge, the volunteers, the plants and arts materials) are central to the creation of rich ecologies of learning at a city scale. Far from an image of a uniform self-organising system, therefore, we have here a complex picture of a fragile ecosystem that is made of interconnected pockets of care, nurturing, and investment (Facer and Buchczyk, 2019). On a sunny day in September this year, we invited a group together to discuss how the learning ecology of the city was experienced and navigated by different groups. We worked together—a group comprising community leaders, members

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of community groups, and academics—to develop a set of ‘use cases’ of people who might want to draw on the city’s resources for learning and development. Three individuals were imagined: Najma, a 20-year-old with huge talents but with sight difficulties; Radha, a 15-year-old excluded from school and from a large family; and Annie, a 46-year-old with two children and an abusive husband. All three individuals were composites of people that those in the room had known over recent years. Together, we traced the resources that these three people might have access to and the routes that they might take to harness the city for their own interests and needs and come to inhabit the city with confidence. The potentially abundant set of resources was mapped out, but in each case, as we teased out the issues, we realized that a mediator was needed, a point of connection between the person and the city, who could build trust and relationships, who could come to know and care for that person, and who could help to make visible and create connections to what was available. These mediators, we realized, are central to enabling individuals to navigate the learning ecology of the city. And through this, we came to better understand the importance of the deeply enmeshed sites of learning that we came across in our fieldwork. In their constant processes of attending to and understanding the needs and interests of different groups and working out how to knot them together, to entangle them, to create lines of connection along which those who entered their doors could travel, these centres were creating productive encounters and conversations that would enable new patterns and possibilities to emerge. This was not a practice of industrial education, of repetitive predictable outcomes, but a craft practice of making and remaking, adapting and tweaking, linking and braiding to create experiences and communities that are able to respond and grow in interaction with the people who inhabit them and the places of which they are a part. Nurturing the learning ecology of the city, then, means nurturing and valuing the craft-based embodied practices of care for individuals and communities that are deeply rooted to particular people and places. Penny and Carolyn know Knowle West deeply and intimately; Zehra understands the issues and concerns of South Asian adults through long experience; Steve lives in walking distance of the farm, his son attended the nursery, and he is part of the place and the community for which he is caring. Together, they are central to building the capacity of the thousands of individuals who enter these dense knots of activity, to create learning ecologies that are meaningful to them.

Towards a thriving learning ecology In 2016, Bristol announced a ‘Year of Learning’ and celebrated becoming the first English city to become a learning city, joining the several hundred learning cities that form part of UNESCO’s network around the world. These cities are beginning to create a set of criteria and guidelines for effective governance of a learning city, practices that envisage partnership working and collective agendas.

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Central to this is the process of bringing together those ‘responsible’ for education and skills across the city—mainly, those leading sites of formal education, employers, and large cultural organisations—to develop strategic initiatives for joint action. What this essay leads us to suggest, however, is that these new governance structures will not be adequate for attending to and nurturing thriving learning ecologies in cities unless they are attentive to the fact that a rich learning ecology already exists, which is craft-based, embodied, networked, and rooted in place. A critical role of any learning city initiative therefore is to enrich that existing learning ecology. For that reason, learning city partnerships need to be built beyond the silos of ‘education and skills’ directorates and to recognize the interdependence of learning ecologies with the wider infrastructures of the city. This means, at the very least, that educators need to create connections with those who are working to plan land strategies, property strategies, and transport strategies across the city. This also, importantly, means ensuring that those people who are already creating rich community learning ecologies know that they are protected and that they can have the confidence and security to build, for the long term, in places where they can put down roots. As Jackson and Barnett argue in the introduction to this collection, learning ecologies embody values; they care for different forms of learning. If a citywide learning ecology is to care for the learning ecologies of all of its inhabitants, it needs equally to learn to care for the carers, for those knitting together the threads of the city to create, against the odds, the protective niches that foster learning in all of its rich diversity.

Acknowledgements We thank all of the organisations and individuals in Bristol who have welcomed us and given generously of their time over the past few years. The project was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Grant Ref: AH/ N504518/1.

Notes 1 Bristol is a city of around 450,000 people in the west of England, near the border with Wales and around 2 hours from London. It was European Green Capital in 2016, is one of the 10 core cities in the United Kingdom, and is rapidly growing due to its strong creative, digital, and engineering sectors as well as its reputation for a high quality of life. It is also, however, a highly unequal city, both in terms of formal educational qualifications and wealth. 2 Haraway’s key point here is that reality is relational: ‘Human and nonhuman, all entities take shape in encounters, in practices; and the actors and partners in encounters are not all human, to say the least’ (1994, p. 65). The idea of the cat’s cradle is also further developed in Haraway’s (2016) book Staying With the Trouble, where she describes it as a practice of worlding. The cat’s cradle in Haraway’s terms is a form of knitting together different forms of knowledge to productively interfere with the existing order to ‘make a difference in the world rather than displacing the same elsewhere’ (Haraway, 1994, p. 63).

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3 Elsewhere (Facer and Buchczyk, 2019), we have explored whether the learning resources of a city might be understood as ‘learning infrastructure’: a social-material networked practice that is brought into being by social actors. This metaphor has the strength of being easily recognisable and usable by engineers and urban planners but misses some of the material playfulness of the cat’s cradle that we work with here and some of the organic qualities of the metaphor of ecology that frames this book. We are still looking for the generative metaphor that will most productively help to think of learning at a city scale. 4 The community researchers were recruited online through the project website and social media as well as through voluntary sector and Bristol Learning City networks. Keri and Magda invited those who volunteered to develop a personal inquiry into learning in the city and supported them to develop their plans and their analysis of the research. 5 We have undertaken 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork of learning spaces and personal experiences. We have also coordinated a community research project, co-curated an exhibition drawing from fieldwork data, and organized participatory art workshops exploring learning stories. Primary data included approximately 70 tape-recorded interviews, over 1,000 photographs, and extensive field notes from participant observation, meetings attendance, and countless informal conversations. Secondary data comprised analysis of the educational statistics in the city, the development of the UNESCO Learning City programme, and background documentation related to the field sites and initiatives that were the focus of the project.

References Amin, A., & Thrift, N. (2002). Cities: Reimagining the urban. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press. Biesta, G. (2006). Beyond learning: Democratic education for a human future. New York, NY: Routledge. Brenner, N., & Schmid, C. (2015). Towards a new epistemology of the urban? City, 19(2–3), 151–182. Bristol City Council. (2015). Draft integrated education and capital strategy. Bristol, United Kingdom: Bristol City Council. Retrieved from https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/Data/ People%20Scrutiny%20Commission/201509071000/Agenda/0907_13b.pdf De Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Department for Education. (2019). Post-16 transport and travel support to education and training statutory guidance for local authorities. Retrieved from https://assets. publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/772913/Post16_transport_guidance.pdf Ellsworth, E. (2005). Places of learning: Media, architecture, pedagogy.Abingdon, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. Facer, K., & Buchczyk, M. (2019). Understanding learning cities as discursive, material and affective infrastructures. Oxford Review of Education, 45(2), 168–187. Ford, D. (2013). Toward a theory of the educational encounter: Gert Biesta’s educational theory and the right to the city. Critical Studies in Education, 54(3), 299–310. Geels, F. (2010). The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 1, 24–40. Haraway, D. (1994). A game of cat’s cradle: Staying with the trouble: Science studies, feminist theory. Cultural Studies, Configurations, 2(1), 59–71. Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chuthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Harding, S. (1996). Science is ‘good to think with’. Social Text, 46/47, 15–26. Ingold, T. (2010). Footprints through the weather-world: Walking, breathing, knowing. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16(S1), S121–S139. Lather, P. (1995). The validity of angels. Qualitative Inquiry, 1(1), 41–68. McFarlane, C. (2011). Learning the city: Knowledge and translocal assemblage. London, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons. Tuckett, A. (2017). The rise and fall of life-wide learning for adults in England. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 36(1–2), 230–249. Vaughan, K. (2005). Pieced together: Collage as an artist’s method for interdisciplinary research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 4(1), 27–52.

14 SOCIETY AS A LEARNING ECOLOGY Glimpsed and now disappearing? Ronald Barnett

Introduction In this chapter, I aim to do seven things: resuscitate the idea of the learning society; draw on two separate ideas of Jurgen Habermas, those of the public sphere and of societal learning as a set of learning systems; bring into view an ecological perspective; examine the relationship between society as a learning ecology and a knowledge ecology; pay some attention to the ecological strain in the work of the contemporary French philosopher, Bernard Stiegler; and place my discussion in the context of the university as an institution. My thesis is that the learning society, understood as a learning ecology, could be glimpsed roughly in the last quarter of the 20th century but that those glimpses now seem to be clouding over. The role of the university, however, is ambiguous and there remains unfulfilled potential and even new possibilities in recovering a surer sighting of the learning society.

The very idea of the learning society Ideas come and go, and then they come again. For a quarter of a century since the late 1960s and early 1970s, the idea of the learning society had lain somewhat quiescent in the scholarly literature (Hutchins, 1968; Husen, 1974). Then, in the mid-1990s, the idea suddenly burst into a public debate, with the term ‘learning society’ being picked up both in major national and cross-national reports (European Commission, 1995; National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, 1997) and in policy-oriented academic texts in the public domain (Ranson, 1994; Coffield, 1997). That public debate tended to invert the meaning of the phrase (‘learning society’): attention concentrated on the adjective ‘learning’, and society came into view only secondarily. The tacit question

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that that literature posed was this: ‘Just what would a society look like that took learning seriously, from cradle to grave?’ It’s a fair question, but it short-changed the idea of a learning society. Missing from that debate was the question: ‘What would it look like if society was able to learn about itself?’ These two questions are fundamentally different and call for quite different theoretical resources. The first prompted theories of access to educational opportunities, fairness, life chances, social justice, and continuing and lifelong learning. The way opened to a panoply of empirical investigations both across social classes and through the lifespan and raised large socioeconomic issues, for example, about the propensity of employers to support employees’ continuing learning, the range and availability of adult and community education, the life patterns of different subsets of the population, and the willingness of universities to support lifelong learning (here, for instance, Watson and Taylor, 1998). This was a large social research programme, rich in scholarship and empirical inquiry, but, as stated, it short-changed the potential in the phrase ‘the learning society’. Taken seriously, the phrase could have opened questions such as, ‘What is it for a society to learn?’ and ‘Under what conditions might a society learn?’ Such questions are ultimately philosophical. They bring into view still further questions: Does the idea of a society that learns make sense? Is society even the kind of entity that can be said to be capable of learning? And if it is capable of learning, can such a society learn about itself? I am not sure that these questions have ever been properly pursued, let alone answered. Part of the problem is that we do not readily have at hand sufficiently incisive concepts and theories. Prima facie, it is a rather extraordinary idea that a complex such as a mature society, with its population, social and ethnic classes, and groups and institutions, and with its array of technologies and communication structures, could be said to learn. Characteristically, after all, the concept of learning is associated with persons. It is individuals who learn and who learn, very often, in dedicated institutions or in occupational settings where they are exposed to challenging situations in which they will gain experiential and other forms of personal learning. The phrase ‘the learning society’ seems to conjoin ‘learning’ to ‘society’ in an honorific or metaphoric way but can hardly be taken at face value. So how, then, could it be sensibly said that a society can learn? Society may be understood as a dense lattice of institutions and their interconnections, often in rivalry between them. Whether informal or informal, social institutions are decision-making entities. List and Pettit (2011), in their much-heralded book, advanced the thesis that institutions even possess corporate agency. A family may make decisions and so may the United Nations. Because individual institutions and groups may be said to be capable of decision making, so too of a society: it may be said to possess agency. Agency derives in part from understanding, and a society has many resources at its disposal to increase, or to diminish, its understandings of matters. A society can learn: it can advance its understandings of itself, and the matters of societal

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significance in front of itself, such as schooling, energy supply, its political arrangements, transport systems, health systems, and so on. It can advance its collective understandings on all such matters, complex as they are. And its learning systems can develop (Habermas, 1987). That such a learning society is composed of many institutions—in groups, organizations, and corporations—poses challenges, not least as to the flows of information and the means of communication between its entities. Understanding may be enhanced or impeded by the flow, or lack of flow, or distortions in flow, within and especially among the institutions in society. Some centres possess powers to control, divert, thwart, or even distort flows in information and understandings. To speak of society in this way is not to reify—to thingify—society as a fixed and unified entity. On the contrary, society is hugely dynamic, with pulses and momentum evident and at different levels of intensity. Some parts of society may be moribund; others will be in conflict with each other. But, still, we can inquire into the lines and modes of communication between the parts and the power structures evident in those communication flows. Castells (1997) painted a picture of societal ‘nodes’ networked with each other, with some highly powerful nodes and many much lesser ones. He spoke tellingly of ‘spaces of flow and flows of spaces’. These flows, though, are far from even. Some institutions have accumulated so much power that they are able—not least in an internet age—actually to influence the lives of many purely through the control that they can exercise over the flows of (potentially malign) information (Barnett, 2019). A learning society in this sense would be a society that is able to form policies and make well-founded collective decisions about the large matters facing society and its continued flourishing. Conditions attach to such a situation. A society being able to form policies and make decisions about large matters requires a ready flow of well-found information, such that that information can flow fairly freely across and among institutions and peoples and understandings may grow. It is not a condition of such a learning society that the people themselves have to be all the time making decisions, but there needs to exist democratic arrangements that procure a fair measure of assent to the major decisions being made. This requires both knowledgeable citizens and trust in the political arrangements.

Well-found information—and its fragility So far, I have suggested that the idea of a learning society holds water but only under certain conditions, of which two have so far been identified: a goodly flow of information and democratic decision-making processes. We do not have space to go into the second of those, but we must pursue the first, that of well-found information. An open society—for a learning society has to be an open society— will possess several agencies that assist in the production and/or the circulation of well-found information. These include high-quality newspapers, autonomous national broadcasters, an independent judiciary, independent coroners

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(publicly to pronounce on death in unusual circumstances), chartered (i.e., quasi-independent) professional bodies, and educational institutions, especially universities. In 2016, the term ‘post-truth’ was declared the Oxford English Dictionary word of the year. At about that time, not least in the wake of populist movements taking place in several countries, some scepticism was voiced towards ‘experts’. Universities have found themselves in the eye of a storm. Increasingly, they are being looked upon with distrust. They are no longer always presumed to be providing reliable knowledge. On many matters of large public and political concern, after all, they seem frequently to issue forth in contending views, it seldom being understood that difference of view lies in the very essence as to what it was to be a university. We should note that, for the past half-century and more, universities have aided and abetted this general mood of distrust towards universities. The academic world has, it might seem, striven to undermine the substance of its own work with a stream of intellectual movements, the collective effect of which has been that of suggesting that the emperor wears no clothes. Relativism, philosophical scepticism, the strong programme of the sociology of science, deconstructionism, constructivist methodologies, ethnomethodology, actor-network theory, postmodernism, and hermeneutics have all, in their different ways, implied that the world is simply that of human beings’ accounts of the world. There might or might not be a ‘real’ world, independent of perceptions of it, but, either way, nothing of substance could be said about it. The university, then, has been subject to a double-undermining of late, an (external) societal undermining of a distrust in the university and an (internal) epistemological critique from within. This total environment in which universities find themselves affects the propensity of the university to fulfil its possibilities as an institution in enhancing a learning society through the development of public understanding. The wider society has found grounds for doubting the substance of what emerges from universities, now positioned as part of the ‘elites’ with their own partial readings of matters. ‘That’s only his or her opinion’ or ‘those are only their opinions’ is now to be heard not uncommonly of the academic voice. There is therefore a fragility that attaches to the perception that the university provides well-found information in the communication circuits of the world. That this is a fragility that attaches to the perception of the well-foundedness of the information generated by the university is important, for there remains the possibility that the actual substance of that information is robust. However, not even that possibility should be assumed to be the case. From Nietzsche in his attack on institutions, including universities, as falling in with large will-sapping sets of presuppositions, through the critique of instrumental reason mounted by the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory in the 1930s to 1960s, the critiques of scientism in the 1960s and 1970s, and on to contemporary critiques of the ‘colonization’ and ‘epistemicide’ (de Sousa Santos, 2016) exerted by the Global North over the Global South—these critiques have in effect suggested that

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academic knowledge systematically exhibits biases and distortions. This is not the place to delve into that line of critique of academic knowledge. The point here is that knowledge associated with the universities cannot be assumed to be neutral or independent or entirely secure. There is a fragility in academic knowledge.

A knowledge ecology It is evident that the knowledge produced and promulgated by universities is but a part of much larger swirls of information circulating in society. There is a knowledge ecology ebbing and flowing here, and this ecology is a composite of the numerous knowledges present in the world. An ecology may be understood as a set of entities held together, loosely or otherwise, that possesses an inner dynamic, has a propensity of its own to reproduce itself and so be immanently sustainable, but that exhibits some fragility—its elements may even be in tension with each other—and is liable to be impaired, not least by human activity. All of these characteristics can be said to be attributes of the knowledge ecology, which is a complex of elements in dynamic tension with each other. As noted, it includes formal and informal information circuits, in the private and public sectors, with individuals, groups, and organizations participating in the generation of knowledge and flows of information with greater or lesser authority. The dynamic that this knowledge ecology contains promotes its reproducibility, but it is a fragile system, liable to be impaired, not least because, as noted, some players exercise considerably more communicative and ideological power than others. A number of terms have appeared in the last few paragraphs with little precision, leaving open, for example, the difference between ‘knowledge’, ‘information’, and ‘learning’, and the meanings of ‘communication’ and ‘ideology’. These are all large matters and cannot be addressed satisfactorily here, but they deserve at least some cursory remarks. A distinction between knowledge and information is not infrequently observed but seldom made at any depth. A first step would be to say that, although both knowledge and information offer insight into the world, knowledge refers to a body of attested claims, worked out in collaborative, public, and critical inquiry. Information possesses none of these qualities. Learning could relate to both knowledge and information, but the former case implies the possibility of a transformation in one’s being in the world. In coming to know something, I enter into a personal relationship with the entity in question that is not possible in relation to information. Communication and ideology both imply circuits of information and possibly knowledge. However, ideology implies also a collective set of claims on the world that trade on truth; it is just that those claims are economical with the truth. Communication implies no such attachment to truth. That which may be communicated includes sentiments, practices, data, and expressions, as well as downright falsehoods.

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Holding these distinctions in mind, let us return to the matter of the knowledge ecology. The knowledge ecology, we may say, is the totality both of the entities that contribute to the production of knowledge and its circulation— institutions, groups, individuals, corporations, communities—and their relationships. For this knowledge ecology to work effectively, not only should there be communication between its entities, but also those channels should exhibit— in Habermassian terminology—undistorted communication (Habermas, 1981, pp. 332–333). However, due to imbalances in power structures, its communication channels are increasingly distorted by ideologies and mere beliefs and information being assumed to count as (attested) knowledge. The knowledge ecology is fragile.

Society as a learning ecology Only now are we in a position to turn to the idea of a learning ecology and, in particular, the idea of society itself understood as a learning ecology. A vibrant learning ecology in this sense would be characterised by a society in which its institutions were as open as far as practicable, its peoples enjoying freedom to inquire into matters, and in which social imaginaries of learning, criticality, and reason were evident. Differences between knowledge and information would be intuited. Information would be crucial, for example, with a good flow of information pertaining to public issues of the environment, well-being, collectivity, health, and so forth, but so, too, there would be a ready appreciation of informed and well-found knowledge in relation to such information. The term ‘knowledge’ would be accompanied by other such terms as ‘reason’, ‘truth’, ‘research’, ‘critique’, ‘publication’, and so forth. Universities would not be accorded an especially privileged position as a repository and provider of such knowledge, but it would be understood that they were generally to be regarded as one reliable source of just such knowledge. In question here is not just the mechanical idea of information flows, but also the question of spirit. Over the past half-century or more, there has been a tacit prohibition on talk of spirit, but it is making a comeback. It was, of course, central to the work of Henri Bergson, but it was picked up separately by Derrida (1991) and by Irigaray (1999), who both noticed and commented on the near absence of spirit (or ‘air’) in Heidegger. Recently, too, it has been drawn upon by Jane Bennett in her brilliant (2010) book, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, where she refers in some detail not just to Bergson but also to the work of Hans Driesch. For both Bergson and Driesch, there is a nonmechanical agent or ‘inner directing principle’ that injects life into entities. Both Bergson and Driesch were interested, indeed fascinated, in the way in which their vitalism extended to the nonhuman world, but what is of interest here is the extension of that way of thinking to whole features of society, such as the knowledge ecology. As Bernard Stiegler (2014, p. 88) pointedly observes, ‘A question of the ecology of spirit presents itself here’.

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In keeping with that outlook, I would want to say that there is a creative spirit inherent in a knowledge ecology. However, as indicated, this creative element is quite fragile and can come close to even being destroyed, as when malevolent states, for example, close or substantially condition the use of the internet, prevent critique of the government, and subjugate their universities and academics. But, still, what might it be for a learning ecology to be present? A learning ecology, in the sense I am interested in here, is a knowledge ecology plus. It is a society that has a general interest in learning collectively and would be marked by the presence not only of an informed citizenry, but also of citizen scientists and citizen scholars (Ackerman and Coogan, 2010), who would be in contact, for example, with universities, attending public lectures offered by universities, and even in occasional contact with universities. It would be exemplified by universities and communities working together in a spirit of civic engagement. It would be apparent in universities making their knowledge resources publicly available both directly (e.g., on the internet) and more indirectly, by their academics contributing to the formation of public policies. This would be a society that learns collectively. Note that the concept of learning plays at a hierarchy of levels here. At an intermediate level, that of a society of a particular nation, societal learning would be evident when its total learning systems—informal and formal, corporate and community, face-to-face and virtual, broadcast media and social media, professional and amateur—have a combined effect of raising the level of public understanding of (what might be quite complex) issues. There would be here a steady growth in the intermeshing of public spheres (plural). (cf Habermas, 1962) Universities would play a particular part here, both through their public engagement activities and, more serendipitously, in increasing the flow of pertinent information and making available—orally and in documents— their accumulated knowledge. By extrapolation, both organizations and individuals would be playing a double part. They would be receiving and engaging with the knowledge and information circulating in the public sphere, but they would also be playing their part in contributing to an enlivening of those knowledge systems. It is clear that the complexities are such that, in this societal learning ecology, we should speak of systems, publics, knowledges, and public spheres. There are no singulars here. I mentioned a moment ago that the learning society is but an intermediate level of this societal learning. It should be evident that the kind of societal learning I am sketching here can be promoted across societies (that is, across nations) firstly on a regional basis, and then even on a world basis. The first of these is already embryonically apparent, and perhaps Europe is the most advanced pan-national region with a multitude of organizations with a knowledge, inquiry, or learning orientation. The second of these is hardly at all yet present, there being only a few world institutions and organizations

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yet carrying the torch. However, alongside organizations such as the United Nations and UNESCO, there is a multitude of organizations with much less authority and visibility, and there is the emergence of peer-to-many social media platforms that are enabling the growth of worldly citizenship. A formal way of capturing the formations being sketched out here is that of a nested assemblage of levels of societal learning systems (c.f., Delanda, 2013), and three matters are of immediate note. Firstly, to speak of systems here connotes neither nonfeeling apparatuses, insensitive to human beings, nor apparatuses imposing themselves on human beings. These learning systems both can help to generate ‘desire’, to use a term of Guattari’s (2016), and comprise spaces in which individuals can be agentic in advancing the learning potential inherent in these systems. We see this in well-functioning democracies in which learning systems intermesh, such that, occasionally at least, individuals call the powerful to account and tellingly so when armed with well-found information gleaned from the public sphere. Secondly, knowledge and learning take in each other’s washing, so to speak. Societal learning advances on the basis of well-found knowledge, from wheresoever it derives. To press the point, knowledge can be generated by and become a resource of individuals or of collectives, or of none. That is to say, it can reside ‘without a knowing subject’ (Popper, 1975) but constitute a general resource that can be drawn upon. ‘Ecological relational space is a territory of hyper-learning’ (Stiegler, 2014, p. 26), and this hyper-learning is independent of actual persons. The books and journal papers of those who are dead are obvious candidates here, but Wikipedia approaches this status as well, having become an inexhaustible resource, even if there is debate about the epistemic credentials of its contents. Societal learning advances on the basis of the presence and availability of well-found knowledge and can prompt continuing contributions to the general knowledge resources of society. Again, Wikipedia is an example of this phenomenon, in which individuals make voluntary contributions in its development, but there are numerous other examples, in which groups advance their collective understanding of matters. In the United Kingdom, a nice example is that of the University of the Third Age, in which individuals in possession of expertise take on pedagogical responsibilities for local groups. At the fully societal level or trans-societal level, research may be put in hand and reports published online for public consumption.

Glimpsed and now disappearing? The title of this chapter is ‘Society as a Learning Ecology: Glimpsed and Now Disappearing?’. We have been glimpsing this possibility, conceptually, theoretically, and practically. I have said a little about the concept of societal learning, sketched the conditions under which it might be prompted to appear, and pointed to some practical instances, from the individual to the trans-national

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levels. Simmering has been an ecological perspective, with nodes of learning at different levels being portrayed as entities loosely connected, with inherent sources of energy and will, and so having a tendency towards self-sustainability. This self-sustainability may lead to a new formation, and we see just this as think tanks are established, new knowledges come into view, new media emerge, and new learning strategies evolve. We are surely on a cusp in all of this. Both society as a learning ecology and the knowledge ecology on which it rests are, as stated, fragile, and not least because the two ecologies trade on each other. The knowledge ecology is being weakened through the rise of populism, of ‘fake news’ deliberately promulgated as such by malign agencies making particular use of social media, of an algorithmic capitalism (Peters, 2013) with algorithms being designed to deceive recipients as to their validity, by states moving their educational systems into quasi-markets, of a scientism reducing the range of acceptable knowledge forms, and by large corporations wielding much power over educational institutions. The status of knowledge is put in question by these developments, and what counts as bona fide knowledge is narrowed. The various sites of the knowledge ecology, accordingly, are one by one being weakened, both directly and indirectly. Parallel weakenings can be observed in this learning ecology. For example, local newspapers are withdrawn from the market, and the main media are controlled by large corporate interests, thus reducing the diversity of sources and lines of communication for societal learning. Public institutions of learning are put in jeopardy as the state constrains, and may actually reduce, their budgets. Expert knowledge is actually repudiated by significant voices in political and public life. And the digital age promotes reduced attention spans, such that the patience required to master new material in the public sphere is diminished and spaces for collective well-informed argument are put in question. ‘[R]eason can regress and self-destruct’ (Stiegler, 2015, p. 45). It may be tempting to conclude that both the knowledge ecology and the societal learning ecology are under threat. That would be a too-hasty conclusion. Firstly, there are a number of positive indications of developments on both fronts, which suggest a strengthening of the two ecologies. There is more knowledge available in the public sphere and a greater diversity of sources of knowledge. Cognitive capitalism (Boutang, 2011) has its knowledge biases, but at least it is spawning a heterogeneity of sites of knowledge generation. The knowledge ecology is spreading. At the same time, a more educated population has a heightened eagerness to learn, from all manner of sources and directions. In many countries of the world, around 50% or more of young people are now attending institutions of higher education, and many, and perhaps most, will want to go on advancing their understandings of the world through their life span. Thus, the tea leaves may be legitimately read in different ways: there are signs of the knowledge ecology and the learning ecology both weakening and strengthening simultaneously.

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Universities: Challenges and responsibilities If the knowledge ecology is to work well, universities have a crucial role to play, not merely in generating knowledge and in bringing their students into the presence of such well-found knowledge but also in heeding two major responsibilities. Firstly, universities need to be open to an ever-widening array of knowledges. The plight of the humanities; the dominance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (the STEM disciplines); a blindness towards indigenous knowledges; an indifference towards interdisciplinarity; and the nonrecognition of the role of women in science all suggest that the epistemic positioning of universities has been constrained, and harmfully so. The ‘epistemicide’ that de Sousa Santos (2016) has observed between the Global North and the Global South can be observed within the Global North itself. It is a highly limited range of forms of knowledge that is favoured in universities. Secondly, if universities are to be fully promoting the knowledge ecology, they have to be working at promulgating to the wider society the knowledge that they generate and in ways in which it can be generally accessed (Finnegan, 2005). Much, as noted, is beginning to happen, as universities put their work online for public consumption, as their academics engage more with the wider society, and as collaborative ventures are formed with groups and communities. We are, though, surely only at the beginnings of such movements if universities are to play their full part in promoting a societal learning ecology. Universities have to work at helping to grow the public understanding of complex issues and widen the public sphere, and that calls for new communicative strategies if their knowledge is to become publicly accessible. Only in this way can the knowledge ecology work in support of the learning ecology. Only in this way, too, can universities take on a new role of helping to address the epistemic cleavage in society for which they are, albeit unwittingly, in part responsible, so that reliable knowledge is not confined just to sections of society.

Conclusion The two concepts of knowledge ecology and of learning ecology can be understood at the level of society. Moreover, both concepts need to come into view if sense is to be made of the construction ‘the learning society’. However, the learning society brings out differences between the two concepts. Of the two, the concept of knowledge ecology is foundational. At the level of society, a flourishing knowledge ecology is necessary in order for a learning ecology be present. Learning, after all, is dependent on knowledge. A learning society—a society that learns, that goes on learning about itself, and collectively makes well-founded decisions about complex matters—requires a flourishing learning ecology, in which individuals, organizations, and communities exhibit a will to learn and a dynamic in mutual engagement oriented towards understanding. This presence of flows of knowledge and information across society is a kind of

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glue that provides for the intermeshing of the three entities, namely the learning society, knowledge ecology, and learning ecology. The university, as a key generator of reliable knowledge, is well placed to assist the development of such a learning society. Like the learning society itself, however, the university is on the cusp. Malign forces are present that would both narrow the generation of knowledge, confining it just to certain forms, and curb the possibilities for its dissemination to wider publics. This is not, however, the full picture. To the contrary, simultaneously, options are opening to universities, not least in a digital age, in which universities can help to forge and communicate with multiple publics. The idea of the learning society still has considerable mileage in it.

References Ackerman, J. M., & Coogan, D. J. (Eds.). (2010). The public work of rhetoric: Citizen-scholars and civic engagement. Colombia, SC: University of South Carolina. Barnett, R. (2019). University challenge: Division, discourse and democracy. Postdigital Science and Education, 1–5. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42438-019-00044-z Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham, NC: Duke University. Boutang,Y. M. (2011). Cognitive capitalism. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity. Castells, M. (1997). The rise of the network society. Vol 1: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Coffield, F. (1997). Can the UK become a learning society? London, United Kingdom: King’s College London. DeLanda, M. (2013). A new philosophy of society: Assemblage theory and social complexity. New York, NY: Bloomsbury. Derrida, J. (1991) Of spirit: Heidegger and the question. Chicago, MI: University of Chicago. de Sousa Santos, B. (2016). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. New York, NY: Routledge. European Commission. (1995). Teaching and learning: Towards the learning society. Brussels, Belgium: European Commission. Finnegan, R. (Ed.). (2005). Participating in the knowledge society: Researchers beyond the university walls. London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. Guattari, F. (2016). Lines of flight: For another world of possibilities. New York, NY: Bloomsbury. Habermas, J. (1962). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity. Habermas, J. (1981). The theory of communicative action, volume one: Reason and the rationalization of society. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity. Habermas, J. (1987). The idea of the university: Learning processes. New German Critique, 41(Spring–Summer), 3–22. Husen, T. (1974). The learning society. London, United Kingdom: Methuen. Hutchins, R. M. (1968). The learning society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Irigiray, L. (1999). The forgetting of air in Martin Heidegger. Austin: University of Texas. List, C., & Pettit, P. (2011). Group agency: The possibility, design and status of corporate agents. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University. National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (‘Dearing Report’). (1997). Higher education in the learning society. London, United Kingdom: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Peters, M. A. (2013). Education, science and knowledge capitalism. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

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Popper, S. K. (1975). Objective knowledge. Oxford, Unite Kingdom: Clarendon Press. Ranson, S. (1994). Towards a learning society. London, United Kingdom: Cassell. Stiegler, B. (2014). The re-enchantment of the world: The value of spirit against industrial populism. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury. Stiegler, B. (2015). States of shock: Stupidity and knowledge in the 21st century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity. Watson, D., & Taylor, R. (1998). Lifelong learning and the university: A post-Dearing agenda. London, United Kingdom: Falmer.

EPILOGUE Practice seldom makes perfect but … Ronald Barnett and Norman Jackson

Entrance Among the several meanings of ‘epilogue’, we are reminded that it can offer a brief description of the fates of the characters in a novel. This volume isn’t a novel, but it has many characters in it, and there is a strong narrative running through it. The idea of ‘learning ecologies’ has been not only the central character, but has also been on stage pretty well throughout proceedings here. There have, though, been a number of other characters with not insignificant parts. Major ideas here have included the suggestion—theory even—that learning ecologies are to be found at several levels, from the individual through her learning communities, to whole cities and the nation-state, and may even be said to be evident at a global scale. (The ecological crisis, as many see it, is an example of this upper-level form of [a] learning ecology: Can the world so learn about itself and can it so express its learning in sufficient interconnected and interdependent practices that are adequate to the task?) Out of this curiosity-driven exploration has developed a sense that practice involving significant learning should share the same foundational features and properties of an ecology for learning. And connected to these central characters are other significant characters, namely ecosystems, education, imagination, transformation, being strategic (in advancing learning ecologies), and empowerment. There have, of course, been many other characters with subsidiary but still important parts, including the ideas of human potential, design, innovation, creativity, work, and citizenship.

Blurred boundaries Several large themes have been more or less present throughout the chapters in this volume, and we would pick out six, and inevitably, there are overlaps

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between them. Firstly, in every contribution here, there has been an abiding portrayal of learning ecologies variously as liminal, as lacking firm boundaries, as occupying in-between spaces, as emerging from circumstances and interaction, and as straddling sites of sheer being. A learning ecology is connected with, and itself connects, sites of learning, both formal and informal learning, and thus has no definite set of boundaries of its own. Learning ecologies have a life of their own, growing and developing as participation evolves. Matters unfold at every scale of time. At a personal level, individuals put themselves into new situations and grapple with the unfamiliarity that they encounter by drawing on the resources that they perceive are available, from wherever they might have been derived, even if from a far-flung domain. Something experienced long ago, in some hazy form, and in a different setting, may just come in handy, and one learns how to adapt or repurpose what was learnt so as to survive and even to flourish in the new situation. This straddling characteristic of a learning ecology, its impulse to make connections between instances of learning—actual and potential—brings strengths and weaknesses. The strengths lie in its capacity to aid growth and even, as Sasha Barab and his colleagues put it, to create value. What was previously unattached becomes connected and imbued with new meaning so that it becomes valuable in a new and different context. The weakness lies in the sense that there is fragility here. Connections may not be made; matters may go awry, and there is general embarrassment or worse. Keri Facer and her colleagues draw on the telling and poignant metaphor of the cat’s cradle, and it invites an image of a fragile entity gaining a strength as the string connects its parts. However, it just might all unravel and quite quickly at that. But does this matter? In a world that is forever in formation, what does matter is that learning, and what a person can do with it, fits the circumstance, no matter how temporary. If it works, it opens to its ecological potential. A learning ecology, therefore, is always liminal, always on the edge. It enables persons and groups to move from one state of understanding to another. New, daring, imaginative connections may just be made, and out of which may come new forms of flourishing. Whether from a chance meeting or memories long harboured, the 29-year-old accountant glimpses the possibility of becoming a primary school teacher, and so her own ecology for learning and developing shoots out in a new direction, flexibly accommodating a new purpose while drawing on much of what has been learnt and experienced in the past. But its porousness and its tenuousness give it a fragility. Simultaneously, then, a learning ecology is both fragile and flexible.

Agency and structure Secondly, throughout this volume has emerged a strong sense that learning ecologies are neither given—they are not just there in the world—nor only a matter of human action but are a striking exemplar of the interplay of structure and

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agency. But, then, nice questions have never been far away (and, indeed, have explicitly been posed in several of the chapters). To what degree is a learning ecology constructed by individual human beings, and to what extent does it have ‘real’ properties, having a presence in the world, even independent of individuals’ learning projects? In what ways might a learning ecology be said to be a property of groups and communities as well as persons? Might groups, whether small scale or even large scale, be said to possess agency in relation to proximate learning ecologies? And how are ecologies for learning and practice made? A number of contributors have used the metaphor of weaving to describe the activity and process of connecting and relating contexts, affordances, ideas, information and other resources, people, spaces, and places to create the fabric from which new understanding and meaning are grown. Thus, we might imagine a world that is continuously being knitted and reknitted together into an infinite meshwork of connected possibilities that connect the past with the present and create essential infrastructure for the future. On all of these matters, the work of Margaret Archer is telling, for even though the idea of learning ecologies is almost certainly entirely absent from that large body of work, still the Archerian approach to social life could surely be read quite fairly as a ‘learning ecologies perspective’. Its ideas, which must elude us here, of morphogenesis (the capacity of persons to affect the structures in which they find themselves), of primary and of corporate agents (individuals without and with collective organisations), and of social agency and ‘people emergent properties’ (Archer, 2000) together provide a battery of resources that could come into play in helping us make headway here. Learning ecologies are both structures—they are real in the world—and spaces, affordances, indeed, in which human beings can not only grow but can also exhibit powers and effects of their own agency. And, what is more, in the process, those human beings, through their own learnings and associated actions, may influence and even help to shape the world, which in turn moves on with new possibilities for learning and creativity. As many of the contributors here have noted, these learning ecologies not only have varying scope and intensity, but also are situated, as it were, on different levels, from the personal to the global. Indeed, an ecology for learning, in addition to being boundless, is also open—open to information flows from the global ecosystem of infinite possibilities. In this way, an ecology for learning or practice can access and facilitate the flows of information at the local and situated level, while tapping into information flows at intermediate and global levels. At a practical level, adults who come voluntarily together in local groups, such as in the (United Kingdom’s) University of the Third Age, are actually widening the opportunities for adult learning, both in their localities and in the wider society. Those—very often on the basis of much learning—who participate in public demonstrations across the world in their concerns over climate change and environmental degradation are playing their part in the formation of a global learning ecology, even if it is as yet somewhat ill-shapen. Being open to

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information flows from global ecosystems, of course, opens infinite challenges but also infinite possibilities. Thus, the structures and the scope for agency in relation to learning ecologies interact, with lines of influence going both ways.

Facts and values A further matter present in this volume, even if less explicitly visible but simmering somewhat just under the surface, is a particular feature of learning ecologies, in that they are entities of both fact and value. Learning ecologies are real. They are present in the world, and they are brought into the world by individuals and groups, whether intentionally or unintentionally. But they are also spaces for the expression of values, both those that are intimately held and those that reside in dimly felt collective imaginaries. As we have seen in several of the contributions here, learning ecologies are not merely social spaces that allow individuals and peoples to express some of their likes and wants—in growing, developing, advancing, learning, and understanding—but are carriers of values, of concerns with freedom, becoming, empowerment, self-realisation, and collective well-being. Indeed, there is a suggestion that the desire to create new value is an important energiser of ecologies for learning and practice. This is an extraordinary feature of learning ecologies, that both fact and value reside in them. How can this be? Has it not long been a cardinal point of the rational way of life that matters of fact and value should be kept separate and that moves to conflate them are liable to lead to disaster? Is not talk of ‘learning ecologies’ therefore hardly more than an attempt to smuggle in unarticulated values into what should be treated purely as matters of fact? How might both fact and value gain purchase at once? The way forward here is to remind ourselves of the character of what it is to be, or to be recognized as, an ecology. Among its many elements, an ecology is a number of entities that have a natural affinity, so much so that, left to their own devices, they have self-reproducing tendencies. However, sometimes, things go awry. The ecology can be damaged and show signs of disrepair. We see this both in the natural environment and in human affairs. We can, then, interrogate a learning ecology to establish whether it has any absences and, if so, how they might be repaired. In short, to pick up an idea of Roy Bhaskar (2008, p. 43), the founder of Critical Realism, we can look to ‘absent any absences’ that a learning ecology might be displaying. Is the individual aware of the learning resources at hand that might help her in her life’s journey? Is the action group protesting about a new airport or coal mine aware that there might be potential friends in high places to whom they might reach out? Are there ways of curbing the powers of the state when it imprisons journalists who have been seeking to advance public understanding of sensitive matters? In short, the facts of the matter bequeath value orientations, so that courses of action in defending values of freedom, understanding, and fairness and so on themselves are rational responses, even if value laden, to real situations. In relation to

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learning ecologies, facts and values are therefore vividly present together, and that has been evident in many of the chapters in this volume.

Practical matters A fourth theme present in this volume was embryonically present from the outset of our project but has emerged to become explicit, namely the sense that learning ecologies are very much practical in their nature. This link between learning ecologies and practice is, therefore, evident in the title of this volume (and represents a development in our understanding of its scope in the wake of the contributions as they developed). To a large extent, this consideration connects with our second reflection about both structure and agency being present in learning ecologies. To speak of a learning ecology in terms of practice, or practices, is immediately to bring forward the sense of its possessing agency, whether of individual agency or of corporate agency. A learning ecology is carried forward and flourishes through the will and effort of persons, whether singly or collectively. And these efforts would characteristically be pressed forward within established practices and characteristic settings. Even if the rules are going to be bent, still the rules of the practices in question have to be negotiated. The radical lawyer uses her or his understandings of matters to edge into a new space. This practical task in front of a learning ecology is that of working with, and learning from, the information flows that an environment offers. Although an environment might be unknown to individuals and fraught with uncertainty, complexity, and challenge, having the knowledge, skill, and confidence to develop an ecology for learning is crucial to them in accessing relevant information flows to enable problems to be resolved or opportunities to be taken. This aspect of learning ecologies—as being a matter of practical venturing— throws up all manner of matters for further enquiry and opens the way, as intimated, for both conservative and radical interpretations. The conservatives will wish to draw out the character of the already present practices with which learning ecologies must jostle, and terms such as traditions, rules, imaginaries, internal goods, and even networks will doubtless be deployed. The radicals, on the other hand, in characterising the practices of learning ecologies, will favour terms such as emancipation, praxis, life-project, autonomy, creativity, and transformation. There is much to play for in developing the sense of learning ecologies as practices.

A higher education for the future The chapters that constitute the central core of this book address the matter of a higher education, not least in its forming an essential part of the foundation for any society. Within these contributions is a sense of hope that an ecological view of learning offers a means to break away from the confines of modular, linear, predictable outcomes-based educational design, which unduly constrains

228  Ronald Barnett and Norman Jackson

the way learners in universities are prepared for learning in the rough and tumble of the wider world. All too often in formal education, learning is viewed as the acquisition of prescribed codified knowledge within an organised structured curriculum in ways that are largely determined by teachers. Everyday learning outside formal education is very different when needs, interests, curiosity, and ambition motivate an individual. Graduates, say in professional life, bring to bear much in the way of intelligence, adaptation, and frameworks of understanding, but, then, they have to find the resources they need to learn from the unstructured world around them. This process is necessarily less systematic, more trial and error, more experimental, and more experiential than they will have encountered in the structured world of formalised education. The contributors to this volume are pointing to possibilities for a future higher education that is founded on the principles of learning ecology design.

Optimism and pessimism The final matter that we would draw out of the contributions here, although it is barely explicit, is the entanglement of optimism and pessimism. The idea of learning ecologies, after all, offers a stage on which both optimists and pessimists can play their legitimate parts. The optimists will doubtless focus their attention on the forms of agency that the idea affords and will seek to paint a picture of individuals and groups forging their own paths and futures, in fulfilling learning and development ventures, full of human flourishing. Learning on the edge in liminal spaces— or ecotones, as Ann Pendleton-Jullian puts it—will be seen itself to sponsor creativity and innovation and many forms and sources of value creation. The optimists will connect the idea of learning ecologies with the needs of a future world that is in need of more ecologically sustained thinking and behaviours from its human inhabitants. The pessimists, on the other hand, will want to urge caution and point to the impairments that are present in the structures—societal, political, global—that impinge upon the potential of learning ecologies. As a matter of fact, it will be observed, people, groups, communities, and even whole societies are prevented from making the advancements in learning and understanding and from developing their networks and attachments through which their life projects might develop. The pessimists will note, perhaps despairingly, the seeming inability of societies to take seriously the plight of the natural world and the apparent path to destruction faced by the whole Earth. Is this a matter, then, on which the jury is permanently out and always in session? The flourishing of learning ecologies is always in doubt, always a negotiation—and often a fraught negotiation—between the will of persons (both singly and in their groups) and the circumstances that surround them. Sometimes it comes off, and definite progress is made and the pieces of the jigsaw seem to come

Epilogue 229

together to form a satisfying picture, at least to those at the centre of the learning ecology in question. But, at other times, the learning venture comes unstuck, or even worse, as the way is blocked by powerful agencies or just through serendipitous circumstances (a key person moves away, the employer takes umbrage, the state becomes overly anxious, the world does not seem to care). Realising the potential in learning ecologies is always on the edge, it seems; always a matter of will and trial and effort. And, at best, the pieces just won’t form any kind of coherent pattern. After all, the individual characteristically finds herself in all kind of networks, each of which has its own tentacles spreading out in different directions (as Bruno Latour has been at pains to underscore). And at worst, the will understandably gives up, and the venture is called off (the protest group disbands, the student becomes a ‘noncompleter’, the book is never fully written, and the life’s ambition to become a successful female lawyer is quietly shelved). There is no clear pattern here: both optimists and pessimists can have their day.

Finale, for now Practice, then, seldom makes perfect. The world, the 21st century world, is too fraught, messy, and structured with power to allow that. But practice never makes perfect. There is always more to learn, more ways in which to flourish, to grow, to help the world to be a better place. In the end, then, the idea of learning ecologies summons each member of the human race—singly and in their groups—to the tribunal of affordances (to use a term deployed by some of the contributors here). What opportunities have you had to realise your hopes and ambitions? To what extent did you take advantage of them, even if matters went against you? And to what extent did you create your own possibilities in the world? In short, as well as being a matter of the will and the imagination, the matter of learning ecologies is a matter of individual, collective, and social responsibility. It should not be ducked.

References Archer, M. (2000). Being human: The problem of agency. Cambridge, United Kingdom: University of Cambridge. Bhaskar, R. (2008). Dialectic: The pulse of freedom. New York, NY: Routledge.

AUTHOR INDEX

Note: Page numbers in bold indicate figures Abram, D 34, 39 Acai, A 99 Acker, S 146 Ackerman, J M 217 Adorno, T 55 Akkerman, S E 69 Alamro, A S 56 Alcock, S 27 Alheit, P 164 Alisat, S 33 Alter, Z 49–50 Amabile, T M 169 Amin, A 195, 204 Andres, L 146, 154 Antonelli, P 115 Archer, M 225 Arici, A 130, 136–37 Auriol, L 14 Bain, M 106 Baker, B K 9–10, 92, 180 Bakker, A 69 Bang, M 108 Banks, J A 19, 89 Barab, S 91, 129–30, 136–37, 224 Barben, D 132 Barnacle, R 147, 154 Barnett, R 5, 8, 22, 52–54, 82, 89, 99, 106, 109, 147–48, 153, 155–56, 208, 213 Barron, B 11, 19, 89

Barry, J 72 Bateson, G 7, 46, 68 Bateson, N 68–69 Beames, S 42 Beaumont, C 56 Beers, P J 70 Beghetto, R A 187 Bengtsen, S 147–48, 153–55 Bennett, J 216 Berger, G 83 Bergson, H 216 Berlyne, D E 69 Bernstein, R J 55 Bhakta, R 56 Bhaskar, R 226 Biesta, G J J 66, 164, 205 Blenkinsop, S 32 Bolden, R 99 Bosetti, L 49–50 Bound, H 170 Bourdieu, P 147 Boutang, Y M 219 Bowers, C A 32 Bransford, J 129, 131 Brenner, N 195 Brew, A 147 Bridges, S 56 Bronfenbrenner, U 8, 19–28, 105, 164, 167–68 Bronstein, J 84 Brooker, L 23 Broom, C 38 Brown, A 129, 131

Author index 231

Brown, J S 10, 113, 118, 123, 131, 179, 188 Bruner, J 13, 131 Buchanan, R 5 Buchczyk, M 193 Burden, D 56–57 Burford, J 14 Burke, F T 6 Cadenasso, M L 11 Callahan, R E 129 Capra, E 6, 32, 73 Carr, M 26 Carvalho, L 99 Cassuto, L 154 Castells, M 213 Chambers, M 26 Chan, L 56 Chaves, M 65 Chawla, L 33, 38 Cherry, N 147 Christensen, C 132, 139 Clark, A 106 Clarke, P 24 Claxton, G 26 Cleveland, B 103 Cocking, R 129, 131 Coffield, F 211 Collins, A 131, 179 Conradi, E 56 Coogan, D J 217 Cook-Sather, A 49–50, 99 Corner, J 54 Cozolino, L 134 Cronon, W 11 Csikszentmihalyi, M 187 Cuthbert, D 147 Daignault, J 52 Dall’Alba, G 154 Damasio, A 134 D’Amato, J 131 Damsa, C I 105 Daniels, F 83 Darling, N 8 Dausien, L 164 David, L 33 De Certeau, M 205 DeLanda, M 218 Deleuze, G 52 Derr, V 33, 38 Derrida, J 216 de Sousa Santos, B 214, 220 Dewey, J 6, 131, 177, 189–91

de Waal, F 70 Dohn, N 107 Driesch, H 216 Duguid, P 131 Duncan, G J 27 Dvorakova, S L 99 Dwyer, A 99, 108 Egan, K 34, 36–37 Ellinger, D A 171 Elliot, D L 151 Ellis, R 83, 100, 105, 107, 109 Ellsworth, E 209 Elmgren, M 152 English, A C 26 English, H B 26 Eraut, M 168, 177, 180 Evans, K 164–67, 171–74 Facer, K 193, 206, 224 Faeth, M 144 Felton, P 99 Fenwick, T 165 Festinger, L 69 Field, J 51, 57 Filipovic, K 28 Finnegan, R 220 Fisher, E 132 Fisher, K 103 Floyd, A 99 Ford, D 205 Forman, R T T 113, 125 Fox, M 72 Fredholm, A 51 Freedman, L 98 Fuller, A 165 Fuller, S 47 Gallie, D 168 Gardner, S K 147 Gauntlet, D 183 Gaylor, E 24 Geels, F 194 Genosko, G 7 Gibbs, G 98, 101 Gibson, E J 46 Gibson, J J 7, 129 Gibson, R 72 Gildersleeve, R E 152 Glassman, M 22 Glaveanu, V 189–90 Goddard, C 71 Gokhberg, L 146 Goldstone, R L 134

232  Author index

Good, J 56 Goodbun, J 7 Goodyear, P 83, 100, 105–07, 109 Gordon, G 98 Gosling, J 99 Gouvea, J 106 Greeno, J 107 Greenwood, D 38 Greig, S 73 Guattari, F 7–8, 46, 52, 218 Guston, D H 132 Habermas, J 211, 217 Habeshaw, T 98 Haekel, E 4 Hagel, J 113, 123 Haggerty, M 27–28 Halfpenny, A M 19 Hammer, D 105 Haque, E 14 Haraway, D 193, 208 Harding, S 195 Hayashi, Y 56 Hayes, N 19, 23, 25 Hedges, H 23 Heidegger, M 216 Henningsohn, L 51 Hester, M D 6 Heymann, F V 70 Hicks, D 71 Higgins, P 42 Hine, L 99, 108 Hirsch, W 177, 180 Hockman, J 8 Holden, C 77 Hopwood, N 148 Hornby, G 24 Howland, K 56 Husen, T 211 Hutchins, E 106 Hutchins, R M 211 Immordino-Yang, M H 134 Imms, W 103 Ingold, T 9, 87, 106, 135, 177, 186–87, 189–91, 205 Ip, M S M 56 Irigaray, L 216 Ito, M 138 Jackson, N 5, 8, 11, 19, 22–23, 34, 47, 83–84, 86, 89, 91–92, 95, 105, 148, 180–81, 208 Jaspers, K 59 Jax, K 11

Jickling, B 72 Johnson, B 32, 126 Jones, C G 11 Jornet, A 105 Judson, G 32–34, 36–38, 40 Kagawa, F 71 Kals, E 33 Katz, L G 26 Kaufman, J C 187 Kavanagh, L 25 Kawalilak, C 49 Kelly, F 146, 154 Kelsey, E 70 Kernan, M 23 Kersh, N 167, 174 Kofoed, J 49–50 Kolasa, J 11 Kolb, A 167 Kolb, D 167 Kontianen, S 174 Kramer, S 169 Kratsoff, S 24 Lafaele, R 24 Land, R 50–51, 98, 182 Lather, P 195 Lave, J 27, 131, 147 Law, S P 56 Leahy, A 101 Lemke, J L 5, 9 Levin, S A 81 Levy, R L 7 Lindemann, E C 95 List, C 212 Lotz-Sisitka, H 65, 72 Lu, J 56 Lucas, B 26 Luckin, R 106 Luksha, P 95 Lusch, R 84 Macfarlane, B 105, 153 Machowska-Kosciak, M 24 MacRuaire, G M 28 Magnuson, R J 27 Manathunga, C 147 Mandela, N 49–50 Manoli, C 32 Manzini, E 99, 109 Markauskaite, L 105, 107 Marquis, E 99 Mars, M 84 Martin, M 98 Mastern, A S 25

Author index 233

Mathews, K E 99, 108 McAlpine, L 149 McDermott, R 129 McFarlane, C 195, 205 McGarry, D 70 Mendoza, P 147 Mercer-Mapstone, L 99 Meyers, R J 22 Mezirow, J 64, 69 Mhic Mhathuna 23 Miller, J 73 Mitchell, J 71 Monn, A R 25 Moran, E 25 Morris, P A 20–22 Muller, K 33 Nair, S 98 Naess, A 7, 38 Nathan, M J 129 Nelson, R 137 Newman, S E 179 Newton, J 98 Ng, M L 56 Nicol, R 42 Nietzsche, F 214 Nixon, J 152 Noddings, N 66, 20 Norgard, R T 153–54 Norton, J 149 Nye, B D 7 O’Breacháin, A 19 Orr, D W 34, 66 Ostroumov, S A 5, 112 O’Sullivan, E 32 O’Toole, L 19, 23–24 Pansa, R 33 Parikh, S 98 Patterson, P 49 Piaget, J 6 Pearson, K R 70 Pearson, M 147 Peters, M A 65 Peters, S 65 Pendleton-Jullian, A 188, 228 Peters, M A 219 Petrov, G 99 Pettit, P 212 Pickett, S T A 14 Pike, G 73 Plato 48 Plucker, J A 129 Popper, S K 218

Poulton, T 56 Powell, G 26 Preston, D 99 Prestopnik, J L 22 Pulliam, H R 126 Quinn, S 24 Ramkisson, H 33 Ranson, S 211 Rappaport, R 7 Rattray, J 50, 182 Reader, J R 46–47 Redecker, C 95 Richardson, A 10, 90 Richardson, J 98, 101 Rider, S 153 Rittel, H 5 Rivers, S E 134 Robinson, G 147–48 Robinson, S 154 Rogers, C R 187, 189 Rosa, E M 20–21 Sadik, S 174 Santrock, J 22 Sarewitz, D 132, 137 Savin-Baden, M 48, 51, 55–57, 91 Schmidt, C 157, 195, 204 Schofield, S 56 Schulman, L 180 Schwarzin, L 65, 70 Secomandi, F 105 Seel, R 84 Seidman, D 132 Selby, D 71, 73 Selin, C 132 Sen, A 170 Sennet, R 154 Shamtko, N 146 Silen, M 59 Sinclair, J 152 Siraj-Blatchford, I 24 Shah, M 98, 101 Shallcross, T 73 Shepard, K 32 Sibbett, C H 48, 50 Siemens, G 64 Silén, C 51 Silverman, B G 7 Skinner, R 23–24 Slesnick, N 22, 27 Smith, G 38, 45 Smith, K 98

234  Author index

Smith, T B 125 Snelders, D 105 Sobel, D 38 Sol, J 70 Solnit, D 40 Son, J Y 134 Spiker, D 24 Stauffer, R C 4 Stenhouse, L 54 Sterling, S 73 Stiegler, B 211, 216, 218–19 Stone, M Strand, S 24 Takahashi, Y 32 Tallise, R B 6 Tansley, A G 5, 81 Taylor, M 32, 170–71 Taylor, R 212 Tedder, M 164 Thackray, L 56 Thomas, D 8, 118 Thomas, W I 8 Thomasshow, M 42 Thompson, W T 48, 50 Thrift, N 195 Toyama, K 137 Trafford, V 48, 50 Trowler, P 98 Tucci, J 71 Tuckett, A 195 Tudge, J R H 20–21 Turner, J 99 Turner, V 48, 58, 108

Unwin, L 165 van Gannep, A 48 Varenne, H 129 Vaughan, K 195 Vivian, P 59, 182 Vossoughi, S 108 Wahl, D C 66 Waite, E 167–69 Walker, G E 147, 152 Wals, A E J 65, 69, 70 Watkins, J 105 Watson, D 212 Weaver-Hightower, M B 163 Weber, M 5 Webster, K 73 Weilerd, B 33 Weir, E 25 Wenger, E 27, 69, 131, 147 Whelan, J 48 Whitehead, A N 131 Whitehill, T 56 Williams, R 101 Wilson, M 98 Wisker, G 147–49 Wolf, A 173 Wright, S 147 Yip, A L M 56 Yorke, P 98 Zavala, M 108 Zundans-Fraser, L 106

SUBJECT INDEX

Note: Page numbers in bold indicate figures Actor-network theory 214 Adaptability 117 Agency 2, 23, 28, 57, 65, 72, 84, 118, 121, 125, 132, 143, 163–64, 173–74, 195, 212, 225, 228; corporate 212, 225, 227; social 225 Affordances 8, 41, 86, 88, 167, 170, 174, 181–82, 186, 225, 229 Alignment 101–02 Ambiguity 49, 57, 66, 68 Archaeology 92–94 Architecture 112–13, 118, 140 Art 189 Assemblages 8, 64, 98, 204, 218 Assessment 97 Attributes 101 Australia 98–99 Authenticity 118, 180 Autonomy 23, 227 Becoming 5, 67, 75, 133, 150, 22 Being 5, 67, 75 See also Ontology Belonging 32 Biodiversity 71 Bioecological theory 21, 23–24, 27–29 Boundary crossing 68, 72, 117 Burundi 62 Canada 200 Capabilities 26–27, 97

Care 62–63, 66, 75, 206–07 Cartography 8 Change 114, 116, 125 Chaos, 64 Children 25 Citizenship 61, 65, 72, 74, 82, 152–53, 156, 213, 223 City, the 193, 195, 198–202, 204–07 Climate change 62, 71, 74, 225 Coherence 99 Collaboration 10, 12, 82 Collegiality 82 Communication 70, 213, 215; distorted 3, 213 Communities of practice 10 Community 65, 196 Competition 49, 82, 98 Complexity 13, 22, 64, 66, 81, 84, 107, 113, 115, 125, 177, 194, 199, 227 Conflict 70, 113 Connectivity 1, 123, 183, 224–25 Constructivism 6, 214 Cooperation 12 Core 114 Creativity 1, 4, 47, 63, 84, 114–16, 119, 122, 124, 177, 186, 217, 223, 225, 227–28 Criticality 26, 54, 63, 65, 75, 188, 216 Critical Realism 226 Culture 19–20, 23–25, 27, 36, 69, 84, 88, 118, 121, 152–54, 165, 178, 199 Curricula 27, 33, 37, 39–41, 54–55, 71, 74, 109

236  Subject index

Curriculum 89, 97–98, 148, 197; hidden 67; lifewide 89–90 Darkness 155 Democracy 29, 74, 213, 218 Design 5, 114, 117–18, 133, 135, 139, 143, 165, 189, 223, 228 Development 11, 19–21, 25, 29; bioecological model 19–29; individual 20, 173–74 developmental systems 9 Dialogue 66 Digital literacies 10 Digital technologies 57, 84, 103, 106, 167, 219 Disciplines 113, 115–16, 118, 120, 147–48, 156, 180 See also STEM Discontinuity 69 Disjunction 1, 23, 25, 50–51, 54–55, 58 Dispositions 22, 26–27, 33 Disruption 63, 72 Dissent 70 Dissonance 69–70, 155 Diversity 25, 27, 65, 70, 72, 126, 196, 199, 206 Doctoral education 146–49, 152, 155–56 Doctors 178 Doubt 48 Dwelling 205–06 Earth 66 Ecological actions 6 Ecological considerations 6, 33, 148 Ecological crisis 223 Ecological dwelling 156 Ecological flourishing 143 Ecological fragility 114 Ecological framework 131, 136, 143, 166 Ecological learning 9, 35, 46, 132, 148–49, 151, 180 Ecological literacy 6, 32, 34, 73 Ecological metaphor 35, 142, 193, 195 Ecological model 20, 135, 188 Ecological paradigm 8, 129 Ecological perspective 187, 227 Ecological phenomena 1, 19 Ecological potential 224 Ecological processes 12, 33, 129 Ecological relationships 33 Ecological systems 8, 20, 163 Ecological thinking 6, 8, 33, 91–92, 113, 132 Ecological understanding 33–36, 94, 130 Ecological upheaval 154–55

Ecological vitality 84 Ecological zones 10, 112–13, 125 Ecologies 2, 143, 169; Learning 3, 6, 10, 12, 22–23, 134, 143, 194 Ecologies for learning and practice 81–95, 130, 148, 223, 227 Ecologies for life 5 Ecologies of learning 61, 63, 65, 72, 75, 81, 85–86 Ecologies of practice 2, 4, 6, 12–13, 181 Ecology 2, 5, 47, 69, 105, 129, 163, 205, 215, 226; educational 99, 104; idea of 4, 8, 11, 63; implementation 134; personal 1, 197, 199; social 168, 170, 173 See also Learning ecology Ecology of learning 10, 12–13, 23, 74–75, 173, 206 Ecology of life 9 Ecology of practice 86–88, 177, 179, 181–82, 186, 188–91 Ecology of spirit 216 Ecology theory 113, 126 Economy 66 Eco-social systems 3, 8–9, 13, 81, 83–84, 178–79, 187 Ecosophy 46 Ecosphere 147 Ecosystems 5, 9, 11, 24, 69, 81–84, 89, 92, 112, 125, 130–31, 136, 139–40, 155, 165, 194–95, 200, 223; global 85, 22; higher education 81–85, 117, 130; institutional 83–85, 89; learners’ 89; local 135, 143 Ecotones 92, 112–126, 228 Edge 113, 123, 124, 224, 227, 229 Education 4, 6, 11, 20, 25–26, 61–2, 66, 97, 100, 120, 195, 197, 202, 223, 226; adult 195; ecological 33 Elasticity 115–116, 118, 121–23, 125, 149 Emancipation 3–4, 75, 227 Embodiment 201 Emergence 84, 122, 129, 194 Emotion 33–37, 39, 41, 43, 188, 190–91 Empowerment 142, 223, 226 Energy 74, 81 Engagement 36–37, 39, 42–43, 57, 66, 117, 120, 132–33, 135, 153–56, 168, 217 Engineering 178 English 39 Entanglements 195, 202 Entrepreneurialism 114, 117 Environment 2, 4, 6, 10, 20–21, 32, 47, 86, 88, 92, 107, 112, 116, 120, 172, 177–78, 180–82, 184–85

Subject index 237

Epistemic 105, 108; instructional 90; learning 10, 26, 28–29, 71, 90, 92, 97, 102, 104–05, 107, 109, 126, 133, 169, 173; policy 173; socio-cultural 88; socio-material 86; virtual 84 Environments 5, 19, 85, 10, 92, 108–09, 114, 118–19, 164 Epistemology 117–18, 214, 220 Ethics 65–67, 75 See also Values Europe 211, 217 Experience 6 Experimentation 47, 119–22, 124 Facts 227 Fairness 226 Fake news 219 Families 24 Fieldwork 91 Foresight 132, 134–35 Flexibility 54, 224 Flourishing 224 Fluency, epistemic 105; learner 46–47, 52–53 Fragility 114, 206, 215, 219, 224 Fragmentation 48 Frankfurt School of Critical Theory 214 Freedom 226 Funding 103 Futures 71, 118, 155 Gathering 204 Geology 178–79, 181, 183–88, 192 Global South 214, 220 Governance, 100, 102–03 Hermeneutics 214 Higher education 47, 57, 81, 83, 219 Hope 12, 71 Human being , 12, 132 Humanities 3, 220 Humanity 113 Human rights 66 Ideas 118 Identities 2, 4, 47, 49 Identity 2, 23–24, 34, 48, 50–51, 67, 115, 151, 156; cultural 153; ecological 33, 41–43; learner 52, 54–55; loss of 66 Ideology 72, 115, 178, 215 Imagination 13, 33–36, 38, 42–43, 73, 87, 116, 134, 154–55, 188, 223–24, 229 Impact 118, 122, 134, 136 Impairment 2, 215, 228

In-betweenness 57 Individuals 21, 27 Inequity 63, 164, 202 Information 116–17, 120, 212–15, 217, 227 Information technology 99–102, 109, 169 See also Digital technologies Innovation 114, 121–22, 124, 127, 130, 132, 135–36, 143, 223 Inquiry 121 Instability 1 Instrumentalism 118, 214 Integration 132, 135–36, 139–40 Interconnectedness 113 Interdependencies 68, 194–95 Internet 179 Interruption 48 Ireland 25 Italy 200 Judgement 66 Knowledge 23, 25, 28, 32, 34–36, 38, 47, 52–54, 62, 64, 88, 93, 114, 117, 121, 125, 152, 165, 167, 172, 180, 206, 215–20, 227; academic 215; embodied 196; local 196 See also Epistemology; Fluency, epistemic Knowledge acquisition 116, 120, 122 Knowledge ecology 211, 215–17, 219–220 Knowledge production 47, 117 124, 156 Labour market 164 Leadership 74, 109, 152; cultural 154–56 Learners 23–24, 25–29, 32, 34, 36, 40, 47, 86, 88, 91–92, 94, 134, 138, 140, 143, 181 Learning 1–2, 4–6, 8–11, 19, 22–23, 26–27, 29, 37–38, 47, 51, 64–65, 88–90, 94, 98, 104, 108, 119, 122, 130–33, 149, 163, 166, 168–69, 172, 174, 179, 181, 183, 195, 203, 205–07, 216, 218, 225; adult 205, 225; barriers for 69; co-created 68; concept of 212, 217; connected 138; ecologies for 34; hyper-218; informal 151–52, 156–57, 171, 197, 224; lifelong 5, 212; lifewide 5, 89–90; possibilities for 89; relational nature of 21; situated 106; social 10, 219; sustainability 62–63, 72–73; transfer of 23; work-based 165–66, 171–74 Learning city 195, 207–08 Learning ecologies 1, 46–47, 55, 57, 61, 63, 65, 86, 91, 109, 164, 178, 193, 195, 198, 200, 208, 223–25, 228

238  Subject index

Learning ecology 1–2, 4, 10–11, 33–34, 36, 52, 86–87, 90, 134, 193–95, 200–02, 204–07, 211, 216–20, 223, 228; global 225 Learning environment See Environment, learning Learning experiences 180 Learning laboratory 74 Learning opportunities 28–34, 134 Learning outcomes 25, 27–28, 54 See also ‘outcomes’ Learning potential 136 Learning power 26 Learning practices 10, 199, 205 Learning processes 8, 64, 70 Learning society See Society, learning Learning space 56, 61, 103–04, 149, 166–67, 169, 174 Learning systems 10, 20, 105, 132, 211, 213, 218 Learning trajectories 22 Learning zones 46 Life 5, 9 Life projects 2, 4 Life-span 3 Lifewide, concept of 95 Lifeworld 73, 147, 154, 186 Liminality 46–52, 54–55, 57, 182, 224 Literacies, ethical 67; sustainability 67 Lostness 48, 50 Management 100, 103, 108 Materiality 47, 205 Mathematics 39 Meaning 2, 5, 11, 84, 131, 135, 143, 150, 183, 224 Meanings 9 Media 53 Metacognition 26 Metaphor 11, 34, 131, 163, 193–94 Morphogenesis 225 Multidisciplinarity 104, 121, 220 Narratives 22, 34, 92, 94, 186 National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education 98, 211 Neoliberalism 67, 99 Netherlands 62 Networks 21, 34, 38, 64, 122, 150, 156, 213 Niches 8, 194 Ontology 51, 66, 117, 119, 155 See also Being

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 85 Oscillation 51 Outcomes 28, 97, 102–04, 107, 129, 135 Paralysis 71 Pedagogy 24, 52–53, 55, 57, 74–75, 87, 180 PhD 48–49, 146, 148–50, 156 Place 34–38, 40–42, 63, 66–68 Placements 91 Places 86, 88, 181–82 Policy 100 Populism 152, 219 Possibilities 225 Postmodernism 214 Poverty 67 Power 72, 125, 151, 225, 229 Practice ecology 86 Practices 11,81, 87, 120–21, 127, 223, 227, 229; ecological 35, 85, 87, 119; pedagogical 90 Praxis 227 Problem-based learning 55–57, 178 Problem-solving 26, 105, 179 Professional development 104 Projects 94, 104 Proximal processes 22, 25–28 Public sphere 3, 156, 214, 217, 219–220 Public understanding 3, 220 Quality assurance 54, 82, 88, 98, 101, 103, 119, 147 Reason, 87, 153, 188, 214, 216 Reflexivity 74–75 Reflection 87 Relationality 25, 28, 34, 63, 65–66, 68, 73–75, 106, 195, 218 Relativism 214 Reliability 216 Research 68, 82–83, 108, 116, 149–50, 152–53, 155–56, 216 Resilience 1,6, 25, 72, 113, 126 Resources 11, 182, 185, 197, 199, 202, 207 Responsibility 73, 206, 229 Rhizome 51–52, 54, 122 Risk 27, 57, 101, 125, 140, 173 Scholarship 88 Science 189, 191, 214, 219 Self-realisation 226 Self-regulation 26, 64, 106, 171, 226

Subject index 239

Threshold people 57 Time 22, 25 Topologies 115 Transcendence 3 Transformation 25–26, 28, 51–52, 64–65, 69, 71–73, 75, 108, 113, 143, 215, 223, 227 Transgression 50, 63, 65, 70, 72–73 Transition 114 Trust 70, 207, 213 Truth 153, 216; post- 214

Skills 26, 92, 101, 115, 118, 121–22, 125, 138, 173–74, 180, 227 Social-material environment 86, 107, 193, 205 Society 3, 216, 218, 220; learning 211–14, 217, 220; level of 3; open 213 Solidarity 66 Space 54, 123, 218, 227 Spaces 52, 86–88, 94, 101, 181–82 Spirit 216–17 Standards 119 STEM disciplines 3, 220 Strategies, education 97–100, 104 Structures 2, 224–25, 227 Student experience 101–03, 107 Students 24, 28, 35, 39, 41, 47, 49, 85, 92–93, 108–09, 118, 123 Students-as-customer 105 Students-as-partners 108 Sustainability 1–2, 4–6, 32–33, 43, 61, 63–69, 71–72, 74–75, 99, 120, 125 Sustainable Development Goals 67 Systemchrono 22, 164; exo 22, 164, 168–69, 171; macro 22, 164–65, 168; meso 22–25, 164, 168–69, 171; micro 22–24, 164, 168–69 Systematic dysfunctionality 67 Systems 19–21, 28, 64, 81; activity 106–07; eco-social 166 Systems thinking 68

Value 3, 12, 135 Value-creation 130–32, 134–35, 137–40, 142, 177, 183, 190, 228 Values 2, 4, 19, 32, 65, 66–67, 71, 84, 118, 120, 122, 153, 197, 208, 226–27 Virtues 12

Teachers 35–36, 39–40, 82, 88, 90, 108, 118, 178, 197 Teaching, ecological 33, 36–37, 88, 91, 97–98, 116–17 Teaching environment 118 Technologies 62, 99 Tension 113 Third spaces 148–49, 151–52, 156 Threshold concepts 48, 55

Wealth 67 Weaving 33–34, 40, 190, 193–95, 225 Wellbeing 4, 75, 226 Wicked problems 5–6, 95 Will 229 Wisdom 52, 65 Wonder 35–40 Work 163–65, 167–71, 178, 183, 223 World, liquid 5

Uncertainty 1, 71, 227 Understanding 184, 213–14, 220, 226 UNESCO 74, 207, 218 United Kingdom 82, 95, 98, 193, 218, 225 United Nations 61, 67, 212, 218 Universities 8, 42, 98, 147, 211–12, 214, 220 Unknowability 68 Unpredictability 1 Unsustainability 72 Utopia, feasible 156