Latest Announcements


Chair Updates

July 20, 2022

Systems Thinking in Education SIG Members:

As you prepare your proposals for the 2023 AERA Annual Meeting, we invite you to consider submitting your work to the Systems Thinking in Education SIG. Systems thinking is a cross-disciplinary concept that spans a diversity of issues, populations, and contexts, and, thus, can foster system-level critical analyses of research and contextualization of truth. In particular, we welcome proposals aligned with this year’s conference theme, Interrogating Consequential Education Research in Pursuit of Truth, proposals that “push traditional modes of sharing findings, themes, and insights from research in pursuit of truth with consequence.” We encourage you to submit proposals that:

  • Develop careful, detailed, systematic and analytic literature reviews that interrogate educational research from a systems perspective.
  • Identify essential sites for empirical research and engage dialogically with communities to leverage systemic concepts in the design and carrying out of studies. 
  • Identify, forward, critique, and utilize multiple modes for communicating findings of consequential educational research that utilizes systems perspectives. 
  • Create space for analysis and discussion designed to interrogate and advance methods, mechanisms, and practices that name injustice in systems-oriented research and co-construct opportunities for just educational processes and systems.

The Systems Thinking in Education SIG offers a welcoming venue for both established and emerging scholars from a diverse set of institutions and geographical regions. We give careful consideration to field, applied, and evaluation research, as well as theoretically oriented studies. We also welcome a broad range of methodologies.

The deadline for submissions is 11:59 PM, Pacific Time, on July 27, 2022.

If you have specific questions, please feel free to contact the 2023 Systems Thinking in Education SIG Program Chairs, Lok-Sze Wong, University of North Texas (Lok-Sze.Wong@unt.edu) and Linda Mayger, The College of New Jersey (maygerl@tcnj.edu).

Additionally,

I would like to introduce you to the 2023 officers for the SIG. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at any time!

Chair

Jackie Mania, Director of Research and Evaluation, NCCEP

Jackie Mania serves as the Director of Research and Evaluation at NCCEP. Additionally, she serves as an adjunct for three Oklahoma universities in the area of Educational Leadership. Dr. Mania has 20 years of experience in education as a classroom teacher, a principal, a district administrator, the Director of School Turnaround for the State of Oklahoma, and a faculty member at Oklahoma State University. She has published numerous manuscripts and book chapters and has been invited to speak nationally and internationally on her research.

Jackie is a member of the Systems Thinking in Education SIG because she has always felt a sense of community among the members and she enjoys conversations with others in the same field. She is most looking forward to a trip to Poland to see her family this summer. Her hobbies include running, pottery, traveling, and baking.

Program Chair

Linda Mayger, Associate Professor, The College of New Jersey

Dr. Mayger is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Secondary Education at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). Dr. Mayger’s research primarily investigates organizational practices and leadership in full-service community schools and the influences of federal and state policies on practicing educators. Her extensive experiences as a teacher and administrator in P – 12 schools laid a foundation for Dr. Mayger’s teaching and research interests, which focus on how schools can develop systems that address the holistic wellbeing of each child. Her work has appeared in Social Science Research, Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), Leadership and Policy in Schools, and Educational Administration Quarterly.

Dr. Mayger enjoys being part of the Systems Thinking SIG because the Systems Thinking SIG is ideal for considering complex problems that have interdisciplinary causes and effects. She looks forward to teaching a research class in Portugal this summer. Adoro!

Program Chair-Elect

Lok-Sze Wong, Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership, University of North Texas

Dr. Lok-Sze Wong studies system reform policies as attempts to address systemic inequities. Drawing on education, sociocultural, and organization theories and mixed methods, her research unpacks how systems (re)produce inequities and how to humanely reform schools and districts as complex social systems. She focuses on professional learning opportunities that support teachers and administrators as they shift their practices while redesigning the very organizations in which they work. Dr. Wong began her career in education as an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles. Dr. Wong has a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Policy from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Wong enjoys being part of the SIG because the members of this SIG are thoughtful scholars and wonderful human beings who have diverse understandings of systems thinking. We continually push each others' understandings about systems thinking and how to leverage systems thinking to improve children's learning opportunities. She hopes to spend her summer spending a lot of time with her 7-year old daughter this summer when she’s not writing.

Secretary/Treasurer

Margie Sauceda Curwen, Associate Professor of Education, Chapman University

Margie Sauceda Curwen, Ph.D. is an associate professor at Chapman University in Orange, California in the Attallah College of Educational Studies and is the Coordinator for the Kathleen Muth Literacy Center. Her research interests are literacy as a social practice, classroom discourse, pedagogical approaches using systems thinking, critical literacy, and systemic sustainability education.

When Dr. Sauceda Curwen discovered the Systems Thinking in Education SIG, it was a much welcomed academic home for dialogue and sharing ideas.

Webmaster

Nichole Walsh, Assistant Professor, Fresno State

Dr. Walsh’s research area of interest is teacher and administrator preparation and development. She enjoys being part of the Systems Thinking in Education SIG so that she can feel connected to AERA through a smaller group. Personally, she a 16 year old daughter who loves volleyball and 13 year old son who loves chess.

For more information, visit our website at:https://www.aera.net/SIG124/Systems-Thinking-in-Education-SIG-124

See you in Chicago!

Jackie Mania, Ed.D.

Director of Research and Evaluation

National Council for Community and Education Partnerships

1331 H Street NW, Suite 900

Washington, DC 20005

202.530.1135, ext. 2131

www.edpartnerships.org