Teaching and Teacher Education: Complexity Redux

Using narrative inquiry, these authors explored the diverse types of reasoning that seem to direct stakeholders' approaches to educational decision-making. They labeled these approaches as simple, complicated, and complex. They begin their account by explaining the attributes of narrative inquiry that guided their work. Through the scholarly space their conversations created, they charted distinctions within the field of education between simple, complicated, and complex reasonings and solutions. They then turned to a selection of anchor texts from existing scholarship that furthered their grasp of these three approaches and their application to educational challenges. As suggested by the title, their ultimate leanings favored complexity. In combination, their ideas strengthened a claim that the choice of a decision making option differentially influences policy and classroom actions.