Working with Uncertainty for Educational Change

Carmel Conn is Associate Professor in Inclusive Pedagogy at the University of South Wales, UK.Bethan Mitchell is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader at the University of South Wales, UK.Matt Hutt is Head of Professional Learning in Education at the University of South Wales, UK.

• 1. Introduction: Perspectives on complexity within educational systemsPART I: Challenging discourses of certainty2. Research in schools and the lure of the transcendent3. A sociomaterial approach to teacher resilience4. School improvement as narrative: Telling tales on the road from the definitive to the provisional5. Some glimpses into the uncertain comforts of ‘new’ educational theories and practices: Canadian reflectionsPART II: Conditions of possibility for practice6. Curriculum for Wales: Learning from medical education7. Educative leadership – prioritising learning, getting comfortable with uncertainty and privileging relationships – reflections for leaders in education8. Navigating curriculum uncertainty for teacher agency9. New materialist and diffractive perspectives on pedagogy and practice in early childhood science education10. Margins of manoeuvrability for inclusive education

“Education reform often manifests itself in ways that discount the complexities, subtleties, and challenges of change at scale. Policy solutions are sought and enthusiastically borrowed, in education, without any real consideration of the conflicting contextual and cultural influences that rage within all systems. This book uses the lens of uncertainty to critically, but powerfully, re-evaluate the deep complexities that define any system. Theoretically rich and practically grounded, this book reminds us that uncertainty and complexity are to be embraced not ignored, if meaningful educational change is the goal.”Alma Harris, Professor, Cardiff School of Education and Social Policy, UK