<p>Interdisciplinary education has been viewed as a way to give an edge to graduates in terms of developing creativity, innovation, ability to synthesize knowledge, and develop a range of professional skills (Haynes, 2017). However, the push towards interdisciplinarity as opposed to a disciplinary field is a challenge due to strong educational traditions, power dynamics, academic freedom, as well as the power faculty has to form their areas of research interest and disciplines (Ashby & Exter, 2019; Becher & Trowler, 2001; Klein, 2006). Likewise, the diversity of members of an interdisciplinary team can lead to negative forces that can only be overcome with open communication and understanding of both boundaries and ways to address them. This means that an interdisciplinary team may need to have a translator to help build common knowledge, facilitate engagement, and address tacit issues. Instructional designers have the potential to play a translator role. Rooted across the author’s three publications, the focus of this dissertation is to establish the vision for instructional designers getting a more proactive role on an interdisciplinary program design team (translator agency), where mediation of knowledge is needed across faculty to build a successful program. </p>

Svensson, Elisabeth (2018). Rektors ledarskap och organisation i Montessori- friskolor – enintervjustudie av tre rektorer. (Principals leadership and organization in Montessori-schools - aninterview study of three principals). Pedagogik, Institutionen för Skolutveckling och ledarskap,Fakulteten för Lärande och samhälle, Malmö universitet.The research that has taken place has consisted of interviews with principals in two Montessorischools(F-6, F-9) and one Montessori-inspired school (F-6). My purpose with this study was toinvestigate how principals pedagogically lead and organize the daily work connected with how theschool structurally is built and lead. The interviews have been accomplished by a manual withquestions and are semi-structured. I have with a phenomenologically approach tried to describe,interpret and analyze the principals daily work from respondents own perspective. In my analysis,I have used the complexity theory in order to understand and interpret the complexity of the schoolorganization and two models of leadership, transformational and transactional leadership. Theresult of the analysis shows that the Montessori-school principals strategically consciously workwith attitudes and methods of working in the context of learning and teaching. I have identified abasis for how school leadership can be practised within the Montessori pedagogy. I have also in myanalysis established the fact that many of the characteristics of the Montessori pedagogy correspondwith what is stated in the curriculum of the compulsory school (Lgr 11). In relation to theleadership of the principals I have been able to state the fact that both a transformational and atransactional leadership are represented in the three schools. I have made the complexity in theprincipal’s leadership evident in the relation to the organization of the schools and have identifiedan obvious challenge and conflict of interest between the main organization, that is controlled bythe committee, and the principal and the staff of the the schools. My analysis clearly shows that theopinion of all three principals is that the daily work in the school organization is complex. I make acomparison with the complexity theory, which indicates that when the abstract and the simplifiedissues in the daily work meet with the more concrete and complex issues, this will cause difficultiesin the organization. .The study can hopefully increase the knowledge of principals’ leadershiprelated to the organization in Montessori-schools and be complementary to further research in thisfield.

Climate change is one of the most important challenges of today’s societies and poses serious global threats on the world’s environment and societal structures (UN, n.a.b). Providing a novel and adaptive approach to lead and organize for sustainability are self-organized movements (Atkinson et al., 2018). One of those is the Transition movement, which tries to counter the twin threats of climate change and peak oil with local, community-led, bottom-up action. This research aims to explore leadership in self-organized movements at the example of the Transition movement by collecting and analyzing leader’s perceptions about leadership, its relevance but also challenges within the Danish and Swedish Transition region. Hence, a qualitative approach is used. Even though leadership plays a subordinate role in the minds of the leaders, who see it as informal and relate it to tasks of coordination and empowerment, it is evident and present in all of the movements actions. Leadership can thus be considered as relevant and of importance for the movements development and for self-organized movements in general with a community-centered approach. It is also shown that the intangible leadership perception in the Transition movement can pose challenges in relation to systemic boundaries, engaging people and acquiring funds which can collide with the core values of the movement. Nevertheless, self-organization in connection with leadership findings of this study present a way to lead and organize for sustainability.

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The purpose of this study is to examine how documents used in new teacher induction and mentoring programs from five different school districts reflect and acknowledge the complexity of the programs of which they are a part. Extensive research has been conducted regarding various aspects of these two programs, often utilizing linear approaches to these programs. Research has called for analysis of the complexity of these programs. New teacher induction and mentoring documents were collected from each of the five districts, resulting in approximately 76 documents total. Documents were categorized into three main groups: mentor documents, mentee documents, and district documents. Each document was read and analyzed through two phases of data analysis. Phase I of analysis reports on the language contained in the documents related to seven emergent categories. Phase II of analysis connects the language of the documents of the seven emergent categories to the eight indicators of complexity as outlined by Davie and Sumara (2006). Two appendices contain the details of analysis, one appendix for each phase. Findings suggest that most documents contained elements reflecting and acknowledging the complexity of the two programs as well as elements of linear thinking. Lack of reflection of complexity is addressed. Suggestions for further research are given.

The problem of finding the smallest size of a circuit that computes a given boolean function, usually referred to as the minimum circuit size problem (MCSP), has been studied for many years but it is still unknown whether or not the problem is NP-hard. With this in mind we study properties of potential reductions to this problem. The reductions in focus are local natural reductions which has been common in other well-known proofs of NP-hardness. We present a generalized method that shows the existence of an algorithm solving any problem which has a local natural reduction to MCSP. In particular we show that if the decision problem of distinguishing satisfiable 3-SAT instances from those where at most 7/8 + o(1) of the clauses can be satisfied has a reduction to MCSP where any arbitrary bit of the output can be computed in O(n1 - ε) time for any ε &gt; 0 then k-SAT can be solved by a circuit of depth 3 and size 2o(n). / Problemet att finna den minsta storleken på en krets som beräknar en given boolesk funktion, ofta kallat minimum circuit size problem (MCSP), har studerats i många år men det är fortfarande okänt om problemet är NP-svårt eller inte. Med detta i åtankte studerar vi egenskaper hos potentiella reduktioner till det här problemet. Vi fokuserar på naturliga lokala reduktioner som är vanliga i många bevis av NP-svårighet. Vi presenterar en method som visar att det finns en algorithm för att lösa varje problem som har en lokal naturlig reduktion till MCSP. Vi visar att om beslutsproblemet att skilja satisfierbara instanser av 3-SAT från de där som mest 7/8 + o(1) av klausulerna går att satisfiera har en reduktion till MCSP där en godtycklig bit av utdata kan beräknas i O(n1 - ε) tid för varje ε &gt; 0 då kan k-SAT lösas av en krets med djup 3 och storlek 2o(n).

Drawing upon the theories of complexity and complex adaptive systems and the Singerian Inquiring System from C. West Churchman's seminal work The Design of Inquiring Systems the dissertation herein develops a systems design theory for continuous auditing systems. The dissertation consists of discussion of the two foundational theories, development of the Theory of Complex Adaptive Inquiring Organizations (CAIO) and associated design principles for a continuous auditing system supporting a CAIO, and instantiation of the CAIO theory. The instantiation consists of an agent-based model depicting the marketplace for Frontier Airlines that generates an anticipated market share used as an integral component in a mock auditor going concern opinion for the airline. As a whole, the dissertation addresses the lack of an underlying system design theory and comprehensive view needed to build upon and advance the continuous assurance movement and addresses the question of how continuous auditing systems should be designed to produce knowledge--knowledge that benefits auditors, clients, and society as a whole.

Thesis advisor: Patrick McQuillan / Urban school districts' educational leaders face what seem to be an endless number of challenges, such as closing the achievement gap, enhancing student performance, building teacher capacity, creating leadership opportunities, and adapting to a student population that is changing rapidly and increasingly made up of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds who are limited English speakers and/or English language learners. Through the lens of complexity theory, this three-year instrumental case study examined the leadership practices of two Lynch Leadership Academy Principal Fellows in relation to their leadership growth project that they determined would benefit from improvement and, as a result, would be implemented in their urban schools. Using principal and teachers’ interviews and observation fieldnotes of the professional learning communities meetings at the schools, this study chronicled the actions and behaviors of the principals and teachers through their interdependent and mutual relationships as they developed a theory of action and conducted their Leadership Growth Project, taking into account the concepts of complexity theory and the influence on the school community. The findings demonstrate that principals, through their leadership and relationships with their teachers and their engagement in professional learning community activities, complicated and disrupted the complacency, compliance, and comfort of the teachers. The formation of a theory of action, however, which was a way for the teachers and the principals to satisfy the needs of their urban school community in response to the challenges they faced, was sparked by such disruptions. Additionally, teachers had to reconsider how they interacted with their students as a result of their capacity for self-organization at the edge of chaos. A conclusion of this research is that in order to achieve successful professional learning outcomes and emergence through adapted change that incorporate the principal's leadership, teachers must be willing to communicate practice-related issues and to offer and accept constructive criticism in an environment of disequilibrium. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

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United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations are regularly evaluated and critiqued by both scholars and policy-makers, however this scrutiny is commonly restricted to program- and project-level effects. This neglects the unique impacts that emerge from the individuals who populate interventions and those they encounter in conflict-affected communities. The objective of this research is to place these individuals, and their actions and relationships, at the centre of analysis and investigate their impacts independent of, or distinct from, program-level effects. Through the case study of south Lebanon and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), this dissertation explores the social and physical spaces that connect peacekeepers and Lebanese individuals in the course of their everyday lives and actions. Through the theoretical lenses of cultural peacebuilding and hybridity, I conceptualize the meaning of these relationships to the individuals involved, to the UNIFIL mission, and to peace at a broader level. This political ethnography undertakes a complex, relational approach to understanding intervention impacts and effectiveness, thereby 'peopling' a UN peacekeeping operation. Based on original empirical data consisting of 82 ethno-biographical interviews with Lebanese individuals and UNIFIL veterans, alongside 14 months of participant and field observation, I argue that Lebanese people agentially transform superficial, formal encounters with peacekeepers into substantial, impactful relationships through the Lebanese culture of hospitality. In informal, private and local spaces and contexts, 'thick' identities are enacted and cultural exchange occurs, which transforms and hybridizes the knowledges and identities of both peacekeepers and Lebanese people. Through this process of hybridization, interlocutors emerge who facilitate the connections of others in their social networks and function as bridges across the international-local divide. This hybridization augments UNIFIL's access to local knowledge, which improves local support and operational effectiveness. Further, the relationships and connections between peacekeepers and Lebanese people contribute to the restoration or amelioration of Lebanese human identity needs, which are threatened by the conflict with Israel and the ways in which it intersects with intrastate tensions. This constitutes incremental change productive to complex pathways toward peace in south Lebanon.