An Assault on Situational Complexity in the Arena of Education: The Potential of Structured Dialogic Design

Abstract

AbstractThe phenomenon of situational complexity emerges when groups of stakeholders are engaged in addressing wicked problems and/or designing social systems, such as education programs, health plans, transportation networks, etc. World-wide applications of the methodology of Structured Dialogic Design (SDD), with people from all walks of life, have accumulated evidence for the conceptualization of three distinct and overlapping components of situational complexity. These are: (a) objective, which is observer-independent because of its universality, (b) subjective, which is observer-dependent, and (c) intersubjective, which is observer-interdependent. We identify and investigate two critical issues inhibiting the launching of an effective assault on situational complexity: (a) how can we assault the intersubjective component by means of stakeholder inclusion, and (b) how can we adopt and implement inclusive deliberative democracy. Empirical evidence from applications of SDD, indicates that these two issues operate as a vicious cycle. The vicious cycle is responsible for the escalation of the “Global Problematique” as defined in the Club of Rome prospectus, namely of a system of strongly interacting problems, such as climate change, inequities in education, biodiversity reduction, and many more. We employ the Logosofia platform of SDD to simulate the design of a strategy for escaping “the vicious cycle Labyrinth.” We argue that extensive applications of SDD in the educational arena, will enable young and old adults to become co-owners of our Problematique, and co-creators of a strategy for escaping the Labyrinth. As an exemplary application, we present a case study of an assault on the situational complexity emerging from the engagement of deaf and hard of hearing stakeholders in designing an educational program for their school in the state of Michigan, USA.KeywordsComplexityStructured Dialogic DesignIntersubjectivityProblematiquestakeholdersdeliberative democracyDemosofiaLogosofiaparadigm shiftSchool of the deaf