Storying Systems Change: Learning and Living with Complexity

Derek Gladwin () and Naoko Ellis ()
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Derek Gladwin: Faculty of Education and Systems Beings Lab
Naoko Ellis: Faculty of Applied Science and Systems Beings Lab

Systemic Practice and Action Research, 2025, vol. 38, issue 3, No 9, 16 pages

Abstract: Abstract This article introduces Storying Systems Change (SSC) as a transformative educational approach that engages with complexity, relationality, and uncertainty in systemic change. Rather than treating stories as fixed content, SSC enables learners, educators, and practitioners to collectively consider worldviews, embrace uncertainty, and engage with systems through lived experience. The authors propose five pedagogical threads that illustrate how storying can support systemic transformation: cultivating relational approaches, building capacity for uncertainty, holding space for multiple perspectives and paradoxes, learning for adaptive change, and co-creating possible futures. By weaving together theory, practice, and story, SSC aims to offer a generative, connective approach for learning with and in complex systems, deepening our collective capacity to support transformative change. Clinical trial number Not applicable

Keywords: Storying systems change; Transformative education; Complexity; Relational practices; Systems thinking; Narrative inquiry; Post-qualitative research; Adaptive learning; Regenerative futures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s11213-025-09732-3

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