 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
GLOSSARY INQUIRY: ANALYTIC SCIENCE
The dominant form of scientific enquiry in Western history, it seeks to understand and explain phenomena by breaking them down, or analyzing them, into component parts.
Analytic science’s primary methodology is reductionism and it can be contrasted with complexity science approaches. Analytic science works well for examining mechanical (simple and complicated) systems, such as automobiles or electrical circuits, which are the predictable sum of their component parts and determined by external causes. However, it is inadequate for the study of complex systems, like classrooms and schools, which are composed of adaptive and self-organizing agents and exceed the simple sum of their parts.
Analytic methods are pervasive in education—for example, in rigid, behaviouristic classroom management strategies that often fail to take into account students’ contexts, histories, and agency/self-determination as important components of their actions.
See related terms: Complexity Science, Simple System, Complicated System, Complex System, Parts, Adaptation, Self-Organization, Causation, Nestedness, Learner, Modernism, and Theories of Learning.
