The School as a Complex Adaptive System (CAS)

Phillip T. Slee; Rosalyn H. Shute

doi:10.1002/9781394173556.ch14

The School as a Complex Adaptive System (CAS)

Phillip T. Slee, Rosalyn H. Shute

College of Education, Psychology and Social Work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review

Abstract

Following Olweus's seminal research, school bullying is now recognized across the globe as an egregious facet of all too many students' school lives. While Olweus identified individual and family factors as causal, scholars working outside mainstream psychological research suggest that bullying arises not from pathology (paradigm 1), but from normal human group processes (paradigm 2). We suggest that there may be a paradigm 3, based on Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), that unites both approaches. The effectiveness of prevention programs often falls well short of expectations, and applying CAS concepts such as non-linearity and emergence to schools potentially offers new solutions.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	School Bullying and the Legacy of Dan Olweus
Editors	Vasiliki Artinopoulou, Peter K. Smith, Susan P. Limber, Kyrre Breivik
Place of Publication	Hoboken, New Jersey
Publisher	Wiley
Chapter	14
Pages	247-264
Number of pages	18
ISBN (Electronic)	9781394173556
ISBN (Print)	9781394173525
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/9781394173556.ch14
Publication status	Published - 2025

Keywords

Bullying paradigms
bullying prevention
complex adaptive systems
school bullying

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1002/9781394173556.ch14Licence: In Copyright

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ER -

The School as a Complex Adaptive System (CAS)

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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