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GLOSSARY INQUIRY: REDUCTIONISM
The assumption that all phenomena, including human behaviour, can be reduced to a set of fundamental particles, basic laws or essential causes.
Reductionism seeks to comprehensively explain complex phenomena or behaviours by reducing them to their component parts and their fundamental laws. For example, in education, learning is conceived of strictly in terms of individual outcomes and simple behaviourist causes; curricula are broken down into discreet subject areas that are further reduced into instructional blocks and then taught in isolation from one another.
In contrast, complexivists believe that complex phenomena like education and learning are largely irreducible. Schools and learners embody emergent characteristics or processes that can neither be perceived nor understood through reductionist methods.
See related terms: Complex System, Emergence, Embodiment, Theories of Learning, Curriculum.
