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GLOSSARY INQUIRY: EMBODIMENT

This term is used to refer to the inseparability of a system’s learning (and/or knowledge) and its physical being (and acting).

The term embodiment is used both to convey both the particular processes used by a complex system to maintain its coherence and the manner in which it carries/expresses/lives its history. The term thus means different things for different complex forms. Individual humans, for example, are simultaneously biological and social beings who embody both the history of the species (biologically, in their bodily subsystems) and the cultural contexts of their existences (experientially, as participants in culture).

Embodiment also points to the fact that complex systems often unfold from, and are enfolded in, other complex systems. Educators are concerned with several overlapping and nested complex forms, including individual learners, classroom collectives, bodies of knowledge, and culture.

See related terms: Complex System, Knowledge, Learning, Learner, Emergence, Autonomy, Identity, Classroom.

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