Emergence of Complexity

Paul Hager is Emeritus Professor of Education at University of Technology, Sydney. His books include Beckett & Hager (2002) Life, Work and Learning: Practice in Postmodernity (Routledge), Hager & Halliday (2006) Recovering Informal Learning: Wisdom, Judgement and Community (Springer), Hager & Holland (eds.) (2006) Graduate Attributes, Learning and Employability (Springer), and Hager, Lee & Reich (eds.) (2012) Practice, Learning and Change: Practice-theory Perspectives on Professional Learning. Professional and Practice-based Learning book series Vol. 8 (Springer). Paul is a Fellow of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia. In 2013 Educational Philosophy and Theory published a special issue celebrating his work.David Beckett retired at the end of 2017 from The University of Melbourne, where he was most recently a Professor, and Deputy Dean, in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. As well as the 2002 book with Paul Hager, in 2010, Educational Research: Creative Thinking and Doing (O’Toole and Beckett) was published by Oxford University Press, with a second edition in 2013. He is a Fellow of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders, and a Fellow of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia.

“Hager and Beckett’s book is a rich, valuable and often successful attempt to shift our understanding of learning, performance and work to a new level. … Perhaps the positivism queried above has a bright side, too, in that people who are unfamiliar with fields like structuralism, or who have conceived an aversion to some of these ways of thinking, may be stimulated by concepts like co-present groups, non-linearity and emergence to reimagine professional and technical education and training.” (Steven Hodge, International Journal of Lifelong Education, Vol. 39 (5-6), 2020)

• 1. Locating our Enquiry.- 2. Agency and Expertise.- 3. Issues Concerning Practice.- 4. Issues Concerning Related Topics Such as Skills, Competence, Abilities and Capabilities.- 5. Undertandings of Learning.- 6. The Concept of the Co-Present Group.- 7. Complex Systems and Complexity Thinking.- 8. Complexity Thinking and Co-Present Groups.- 9. Fresh Approaches to Agency and Learning.- 10. Fresh Approaches to Practice, Skills, Competence and Expertise.