Getting the Ecostructure of Social Science Education Right

Abstract

Social policy is, in large part, shaped not in the halls of Congress but in the classrooms around the country where policymakers, academics, and the general public receive their training, and where they have embedded in them the policy frame they use. However, a large separation of humanist and science training has created a standard policy frame that has lost the heart of the humanist. To offset that separation, social scientists with humanist tendencies need more mathematical training, while social scientists with more scientific tendencies need more humanist training. Complexity theory is starting to bring the two back together. By embracing the use of high-level mathematics to analyze issues that are excluded in the standard frame, it reintegrates humanist cultural and social issues back into the policy frame. This chapter reflects on how the education of policy makers might evolve to include the complexity policy frame in its considerations.