Systems Theory for Pragmatic Schooling: Toward Principles of Democratic Education

Craig A. Cunningham is Associate Professor of Advanced Studies in Teaching, Educational Foundations, and Technology in Education at National Louis University, Chicago, USA.

"With remarkable insight, Cunningham realizes that John Dewey's pluralistic, situational, holistic, emergent, transactional perspectivalism influenced as it is by Darwinian naturalism and biological functionalism that rejects the organism versus environment dualism is an excellent place to start for those wishing to integrate complex systems theory into the field of education. We will not have real school reform until the reformers reform their thinking. Cunningham's book is a great place to start." - Jim Garrison, Professor of Philosophy of Education, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA "Cunningham's core concept, 'Systems Theory,' may sound technical and forbiddingly abstract but it is anything but that. The book is consistently well-written and accessible. It raises timely and challenging questions about education, and casts them in a clear-eyed idiom that invites the reader to think. I commend the book to all who care about the present and future prospects of our nation's schools." - David T. Hansen, Weinberg Professor in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education, Columbia University, USA "Cunningham brings Dewey's naturalism in conversation with insights from systems theory in order to raise some probing questions about contemporary schooling. Clear, accessible, eloquent and passionate." - Gert Biesta, Professor of Educational Theory and Policy, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, and author of The Beautiful Risk of Education (2014) "A breath of fresh air in an era of stale schooling! Cunningham gives us valuable suggestions to build on diversity, professional choice, interdisciplinary collaboration, and yes joy in education." - Nel Noddings, Lee Jacks Professor of Education Emerita, Stanford University, USA, and author of Education and Democracy in the 21st Century (2013)

• 1. The Schooling We Have 2. The Nature of Nature 3. Systems 4. The Complexities of Schooling 5. Learners and Learning 6. Teachers and Teaching 7. The Schooling We Need 8. Epilogue