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
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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/rejoinment’
• Awareness of ‘interiority’? (Ricoeur)
Major ‘Sustainability’ Events – any
common features?
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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