Introduction and research questions

Policy makers in the United Kingdom have been preoccupied in recent years with ‘transforming’ British education to a ‘world class system’ (TDA 2009, Durrant 2006). To this end a number of large scale reforms have been designed and implemented, which brought sweeping changes to the school curriculum and pedagogy (Barber 2000, DCSF 2006), teacher professionalism (Morris 2001, TDA 2009) and educational leadership (NCSL 2001). These reforms view education policies and standardisation as levers for driving reform.  The standards agenda measures the quality of educational improvement with levels of pupil attainment in the core curriculum subjects: English, Mathematics and Science. Government models for Public Service Reform (PSR 2006) are underpinned by systems thinking, whereby a system is conceptualised as a single entity made up of component parts. These parts can then be understood when analysed in the context of relationships with each other and other systems, rather than in isolation (Seddon 2008).  This paper examines the limitations of systemic approaches to reform and explores alternative perspectives on educational transformation. To this end, the following issues are investigated:

·         the meaning of ‘transformation’ and its manifestations in educational contexts

·         the limitations of systems thinking as a source of models for policy makers and school leaders

·         alternative approaches to ‘transformation’ afforded by complexity theory

Theoretical framework

UK education reform has manifested itself in recent years as a proliferation of often disjointed policies referred to by Ball (2003: 215) as ‘policy epidemic’. Government policy has been criticised for a narrow focus on ‘technical-rationality’, which reduces the purpose of education to meeting standards and views teaching as a set of skills in delivering instruction (Parker 1997).   Education under the previous New Labour Government was also critiqued as unable to deliver the democratic promise of better life chances for all children (Whitty and Whisby 2009). In short then, the projected targets aimed at raising the British education system to ‘world class excellence’ status, are as yet to be achieved (Smithers 2007).

This succession of ‘unpredicted failures’ in UK policy can be explained from the complexity perspective as a consequence of using the technical-rationalist approach to education reform.  This approach assumes an atomistic, mechanistic reality where change can be predicted and control centrally maintained through simple, single cause and effect manipulations (Mason 2008).  In contrast, complexity thinking emphasizes non-linearity, unpredictability, dynamic relations in place of ‘atomistic’ facts.  Central to complexity theory is the notion of complex adaptive systems, such as organisations, human populations and other social groupings. As these systems are made up of many components or agents, they are characterised by a complex causality, where multiple causes lead to multiple effects.  This makes it impossible to predict how these systems will respond and adapt to change over time.  It follows that change and transformation of learning systems can only emerge as a result of local interactions rather than from a centrally imposed blueprint (Stacey 2007).

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