Critical, Emancipatory, and Pluralistic Research for Education: A Review of Critical Systems Theory

Abstract

Qualitative research is inherently critical, interpretive, and multi-method in function, and Denzin and Lincoln (2005) argue that the current status of qualitative research sees the social sciences as a place for critical conversation. This highlights the task at hand for qualitative educational researchers, and their responsibility in bringing a critical view to methodology, promoting social justice, and engaging with systems of education by seeking to identify and address the problems within them. While the problems in education are complex, the application of systems thinking for identifying and solving complex problems has largely been absent. Critical Systems Theory (CST) brings a systems-thinking lens to help educational researchers understand the complex nature of educational systems and problems, while incorporating critical perspectives in both methodology and broader research objectives such as emancipation and social justice. CST is derived from both systems theory and critical social theory. In the mid-twentieth century, systems theory was established by a multidisciplinary group of researchers who believed that studies of science had become increasingly reductionist and the various disciplines isolated. The term system has been defined in various ways, but the core concept is one of relations between components, which together comprise a whole. Among the first to establish systems theory, Bertalanffy (1968) noted the existence of principles and laws that could be generalized across systems and their components regardless of the type of system or its relations to other systems. Ultimately, systems thinking entails identifying the components that make up a system, understanding relations between them, and how these components impact the larger system, external systems, and supra-systems, and vice versa. Systems theory continued to be of large influence in management sciences and research over the last half of the twentieth century, and underwent significant change, including the development of traditional (positivistic) and soft (interpretive) approaches to systems thinking. During the early 1980s, scholars called for a more critical, socially-aware approach to systems thinking and practice (Jackson, 1982; Mingers, 1980). This critical perspective was further developed based on the epistemological views of Habermas, influencing systems theory into the 1990s (Flood & Jackson, 1991; Jackson, 1991a, 1991b). Today, CST is defined by its core commitment to three ideas: critique, emancipation, and pluralism (Schecter, 1991). While CST's history has largely been within the management and operational sciences, its principles and methodological tools offer significant insight to qualitative researchers in many disciplines within social science. This is particularly true for the field of education, where many researchers are focusing on critical, emancipatory research and employing multi-methods for the proper exploration of diverse topics in education. The following section details the development of systems thinking to embrace a critical approach and how the fusion of critical and systems theory resulted in critical systems theory, a theory that merges systems thinking with a critical lens and can provide practical methods to the qualitative researcher for understanding and changing systems with inequalities. We further detail the core commitments to critique, emancipation, and pluralism that form the foundation of CST. Finally, we describe a system of system methodologies to contribute to and guide the selection of critical research methods for qualitative researchers in education. Development of Critical Systems Theory Hard Systems Thinking The early days of systems thinking represented a hard systems approach, reflecting a positivist epistemology, and the research methods focused on concepts such as prediction and control within the natural sciences. …