CALL for PROPOSALS 

Systems Thinking in Education Special Interest Group
The 2016 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting
Friday, April 8 - Tuesday, April 12
Washington, D.C.

The theme of the 2016 AERA Annual Meeting is “Public Scholarship to Educate Diverse Democracies” AERA President Jeannie Oakes shares:

“By design and timing, AERA’s 2016 Centennial Annual Meeting will highlight the interplay of research, politics, and social analysis. The meeting will be held in the US capital in the middle of an electoral season likely rife with contentious education debates, many of which are enmeshed with controversies and opportunities arising from population diversity. We as a community are uniquely positioned to engage in these debates and inform them with rigorous, scholarly inquiry.”

This year’s focus on public scholarship and diverse democracies lends itself toward systems thinking and its role in contributing to public understanding, political debate, and professional practice among the various institutions and society at large. How do our educational institutions implement and sustain systemic and comprehensive processes to educate diverse democracies?  What is the role of systems thinking in the promotion of public scholarship?  How can relationships between higher education, K-12 school systems, and society inform the education of diverse groups of students?  How can the use of systems thinking shape the public’s knowledge and the political environment within which decisions about policy and practice are made?     

The purpose of the Systems Thinking in Education SIG is to “focus on applications of systems thinking principles to address various issues in education” (Systems Thinking in Education website). This year’s theme “Public Scholarship to Educate Diverse Democracies” serves as a foundation for our focus on research and challenges us to enhance our role of education researchers as public scholars who contribute to public understanding, political debate, and professional practice in increasingly diverse democracies in the US and around the globe.

In keeping with the Systems Thinking in Education SIG’s mission, we invite proposals that will contribute to our ongoing conversation about the use of systems thinking in research, evaluation, and applied practice in the areas of educational practice, policy, research, and professional preparation. Areas of interest include systems thinking applied to curriculum and instruction, teaching and pedagogical practice, professional development, change processes, school reform and improvement, program design and development, and assessment and evaluation models. 

We encourage field, applied, and evaluation research, as well as theoretically oriented studies of systems thinking in education. Equally valued is research that focuses on systems thinking as a basis for program development in educational settings that directly impact the lives of all students. As well, we encourage studies that examine the application of systems thinking in the design or redesign of educational systems. We are also interested in applications of systems thinking in examining inquiry-based approaches and learning communities (communities of practice) within schools and related educational settings.

In the spirit of this year’s theme of public scholarship to educate diverse democracies, we encourage proposals that address:

• Field, applied, and evaluation research, as well as theoretically oriented studies of systems thinking in education with a particular interest in applied examples
• Design and development of educational settings that directly impact the lives of students
• Application of systems thinking in educator preparation including the design and development of preparation programs
• Applications of systems thinking in examining inquiry-based approaches and learning communities (communities of practice) within schools and related educational settings
• Studies that examine the use of systems thinking in policy development and analysis
• Methodologies for research and program evaluation that utilize systems theories and systems thinking as a basis for research design. Submissions that pose questions and push discussion around definitions, design issues, methodology constraints, and use of findings would fall in this category.
• Discussion around the intersection of systems-based research and the application of findings to policy and practice. At a time of increasing emphasis on change and reform in educational policy and practice, how does systems thinking influence and inform research, evaluation, and practice?
• Presentation of theoretical and applied research approaches that have used systems theory to analyze and interpret findings, draw conclusions, and offer recommendations, even though the design of the program itself was not based in systems theory or systems thinking. What considerations led to a systems approach? Does a systems approach lead to a different understanding of the data than a non-systems approach?
• Presentation of practice-based programs and pedagogical approaches at both the whole school and classroom levels that used systems theory as a basis for design and implementation. What was learned? What did a systems-based approach bring to the implementation of programs in educational situations and to student learning that differed from non-systems approaches? What are the implications for policy and practice?
• Curricular or pedagogical approaches that emphasize/utilize systems theory as a basis for student learning about systems and/or using systems thinking approaches to learning.

The Systems Thinking in Education SIG prides itself in offering a welcoming venue for papers, roundtables, symposia, and posters that draw on transdisciplinary theories and constructs, integrated methods, and research approaches that aim to answer a breadth of questions from causal to interpretive/descriptive. The program chair invites submissions for papers, symposia, discussion tables, and posters from both established and emerging scholars from a diverse set of institutions and geographical regions, domestic and international. Individuals undertaking research that is not supported with external funding are particularly encouraged to submit their proposals to the Systems Thinking in Education SIG. Please be aware that proposals must be submitted electronically by using the AERA Online Proposal Submission System at http://www.aera.net/

THE SUBMISSION SYSTEM CLOSES at 11:59 PM (Pacific Time) on JULY 22, 2015.

A few reminders:

• For both paper and session submissions, only submissions that have not been published or presented at another professional meeting are eligible for review.
• Submissions for papers, discussion/roundtables, and posters must be in the form of a narrative paper.
• No individual may appear as first author on more than two submissions, and an individual may not appear on the program more than four times.
• A paper or session submission must not contain any references to the paper’s authors, and each submission may be submitted to only a single committee, division, or SIG.

Additional information can be found on the 2016 Annual Meeting and the Call for Submissions webpages located on http://www.aera.net/. If you have specific questions, please feel free to contact the 2016 Systems Thinking in Education SIG Program Chair: Miriam Ezzani, University of North Texas at Denton ([email protected]) or Jan Noga, Pathfinder Evaluation and Consulting ([email protected]).