4th International Conference on Higher Education for Sustainable Development: >>Higher Education for Sustainable Development: Moving the Agenda Forward<<

Management Education for Sustainable Development

Social Mood, Sustainability and

Transformative Education: Views through a Socionomic Lens

David Clemson London South Bank University / London RCE

September 2011

Technical Analysis

• Charts re-present market action, may be used for individual stocks, currencies, commodities and market indices

• May also Fibonacci retracement lines (161.8%, 61.8%, 38.2% etc.) which illustrate a particular type of fractal structure

• Absolute, relative and event-based transformations • Concepts of divergence and confirmation • Trends and reversals, disruptions and enantiodromia • Is this a form of discourse? (see Dirkx, Mezirow & Cranton)

• Why is this so seldom taught (within business schools)?

Elliot Wave Theory • R N Elliott (1871-1948) • Wave structure (5 waves ‘up’, 3 waves ‘down’),

Fibonacci properties, logarithmic spirals • ‘Natural law’ and probabalistic • Wave ‘personality’... • Scale and fractal properties (formological systems) • Crowd psychology and social mood, aspects of

agency (systems thinking, systems interaction – conscious/unconscious – liminality)

• Examples… • Socionomics is the enlargement of EWT to social

phenomena

Generalised wave form Frost & Prechter ( 2005) p.23

Frost & Prechter ( 2005 p.77

Frost & Prechter ( 2005) p.80

Frost & Prechter ( 2005) p.153

What is Socionomics? “Socionomics is a new theory of social causality that offers fresh insights into collective human behaviour …social actions are not causal to changes in social mood, but rather changes in social mood motivate changes in social action. Socionomics supports this research with the hypothesis that humans’ unconscious impulses to herd lead to the emergence of social mood trends, which in turn shape the tone and character of social action. This perspective applies across all realms of social activity, including economic, financial, political and cultural.” Prechter (1999)

Socionomics • Reactions, reflections on the subject… • Could you, would you, use this in your teaching? • Reversal of causality… • Power relationships between ‘orthodoxy’ and

‘alternative’ • Is socionomics a grand narrative? Linkages with

Jungian psychology and Gestalt psychology • Determinism or free-will? Senses of fatalism • Social mood – positive affect/negative affect

Socionomics and Education

• How does this feature in education? ‘Accepted view: economic development is education-led’

• …or ‘Alternative: educational development is economics-led’

• But economics is market-led (this is socionomic thinking) so educational development should follow social mood… (see McKenzie, also Guile, and O’Hara and, from a socionomic perspective, Olson and Prechter (1999))

• ‘Zeitgeist’ and social mood, hermeneutics – phenomenology of ‘dark/light’ and ‘separation/re-joinment’

• Awareness of ‘interiority’? (Ricoeur)

Major ‘Sustainability’ Events – any common features?

• WCED/Bruntland – 11th Dec 1987 • Rio Earth Summit – 3-14 June 1992 (Agenda 21) • Global Reporting Initiative – 1997 onwards • Beyond Grey Pinstripes (WRI) – 1998 • UNGC – 1999-2000 • Johannesburg World Summit 26th Aug – 4th Sept 2002 (UNDESD) • Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (EFMD) – early 2003 • PRME – July 2007 • Copenhagen Climate Change Conference – Dec 2009

See also Barkemeyer et al (2009) for media reporting on sustainability – note the sudden increase in early 2003

What is the prevailing social mood around these ‘events’? Differing effects of negative affect and positive affect

Education… • Business and management education…the dominance of

‘standard model’ – lack of (even unawareness?) of critical alternatives…

• Negative affect making environment appear unsustainable – negotiated meanings of sustainability

• Linking with UNDESD and PRME • Art and chart – the chart as heuristic device? • Contemplation, symbolism, archetypal/depth psychology,

mythology, narrative analysis (chart – and market – as storyteller), hermeneutic approaches

• Co-configuration and knotworking within transformative learning (see Guile)

Discussion topics using the socionomic lens…

• Socionomic lens – refractive properties, but what about reflection, diffraction and interference? Waves as narratives…

• Longer-term social mood and the prevalence of transformative education

• Socionomics, historicism and reductionism, modernism and postmodernism

• Market Archetypes (Marketypes), mythology and archetypal psychology

• Ancient wisdom and ritual as roots of transformative learning – addition beyond aesthetic perspective to Mezirow’s transformative learning theory – mystic or Gnostic? (prevalent at top of wave 5, early stages of wave a)

Diagrammatic Representation of the Three Types of Reflection, Their Related Actions, Transformations, and Depths of Change (Mezirow, 1995) (from Kitchenham)

How would you distinguish between ‘straightforward’ transformation and ‘profound’ transformation?

Longer-term social mood and the prevalence of transformative education

• Awareness of ‘interiority’ (Ricoeur) • But when does this sense of ‘interiority’ occur? Look

carefully at the longer term chart (the one starting in 1789) – are there ‘times’ where e.g. Vygotsky, Jung, Freire, …come to the ‘foreground’?

• Importance of transdisciplinary thinking… • Searching for ‘artifacts’ that represent changing forms

Socionomics, historicism and reductionism, modernism and postmodernism

• Does socionomics offer an approach – by ‘social mood’ – into

the discourse between modernism and postmodernism? (see Harkin, also Wilson)

• Exogenous and endogenous characteristics (Baudrillard, 2003)

• Relative presence of interiority/exteriority – relate to global/local scale (phenomenology of globalisation – see Brown)

• Consumption and production from a socionomic perspective… (see Usher)

• Similarities between the emergence of ‘postmodernism’ and the 2nd Viennese school (Schonberg, Webern, Berg) Expanding (descending) triangles – where before? Where next?

• Trends, strength of conformity and reductionism, memory and forgetting – the role of socionomics in re-covery…

Ancient wisdom and ritual as roots of transformative learning …

• See Kitchenham, also McWhinney & Markos, Washburn,

McWhinney (2004) • From aesthetics to mystic/gnostic experience… • Role of ‘beauty’? Socionomics and art… (Prechter 1999 & 2003) • From socionomics to hermetics… • Does this create a separation and ‘elite’? • Mystics and education – e.g. Gurdjieff, Ouspensky… • Socionomics and ‘presence’ or ‘awakening’ of mysticism? An

emergent (or re-emergent?) perspective within Mezirow’s transformative learning theory?

• ‘Profound’ transformation , sustainability and ESD

Moving the Agenda Forward?

• Social mood at Rio +20? • Is a ‘bear market’ (negative affect) associated with a

stronger presence of ‘transformative education’? • If education is not transformative, is it education?

Socionomic perspectives • Does socionomics naturally lead to social

sustainability? • Can archetypes be considered as fractal? • Practice of ESD?

Conclusion

Our shared experience of sustainability and our practice of ESD is deeply linked with the prevailing social mood. The use of the socionomic lens enables the practices of ESD and wider sustainability initiatives to have greater effect through transformative learning practices.

References and Resources (1) Technical Analysis, Market Psychology, Elliott Wave Theory and Socionomics www.elliottwave.com www.socionomics.net History’s hidden engine – available free on: http://www.socionomics.net/history/ www.socionomics.org www.sociotimes.net – although this closed in June 2008, Pete Kendall continue to offer

socionomic commentary through Elliott Wave International. The articles featured on this site offer a different perspective on many cultural and political themes and, as such, are a great teaching resource!

Frost, A. J. & Prechter, R. (2005); ‘Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior’(10th ed.); New Classics Library, Gainsville, Georgia

Prechter, R. (1999); ‘The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and The New Science of Socionomics’; New Classics Library, Gainsville, Georgia

Prechter, R. (2003); ‘Pioneering Studies in Socionomics’; New Classics Library, Gainsville, Georgia

Olson, Kenneth (2006). ‘A Literature Review of Social Mood’; Journal of Behavioral Finance 7, 4 Education & Social Theories/Perspectives Barkemeyer, R., Figge, F., Holt, D. & Hahn, T. (2009); What the Papers Say: Trends in

Sustainability; Journal of Corporate Citizenship 33, Spring Baudrillard, J. (2003); ‘The Spirit of Terrorism and Other Essays’ (trans. Chris Turner); Verso,

London Brown, T. (1999); ‘Challenging Globalization as Discourse and Phenomenon’; International

Journal of Lifelong Education 18, 1

References and Resources (2) Dirkx, J., Mezirow, J & Cranton, P. (2006); ‘Musings and Reflections on the Meaning, Context and Process

of Transformative Learning: a dialogue between John M. Dirkx and Jack Mezirow’; Journal of Transformative Education 4, 2

Guile, D. (2007); ‘Mobius strip enterprises and expertise in the creative industries: new challenges for lifelong learning?’; International Journal of Lifelong Education 26, 3

Harkin, J. (1998); ‘In Defence of the Modernist Project in Education’; British Journal of Educational Studies 46, 4

Kitchenham, A. (2008); ‘The Evolution of John Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory’; Journal of Transformative Education 6, 2

McKenzie, J. (2002); ‘Stalky & Co.: the Adversarial Curriculum’; Journal of Philosophy of Education 36, 4 McWhinney, W. (2004); ‘The Practice of Transformative Education’; Journal of Transformative Education 2,

3 McWhinney, W. & Markos, L. (2003); ‘Transformative Education: Across the Threshold’; Journal of

Transformative Education 1, 1 O’Hara, M. (2006); ‘In Search of the Next Enlightenment? The Challenge for Education in Uncertain

Times’; Journal of Transformative Education 4, 2 Ricoeur, P. (2004); ‘Memory, History, Forgetting’ (trans. Kathleen Blamey & David Pellauer); University of

Chicago Press, Chicago Usher, R. (2008); ‘Consuming Learning’; Convergence XLI, 1 Washburn, A. (2007); ‘Walking Through the Forest with Will’; Journal of Transformative Education 5, 3 Wilson, J. (2002); ‘Is Education a Good Thing?; British Journal of Educational Studies 50, 3