A QUALITATIVE TRANSDISCIPLINARY PARTICIPATORY ACTION-RESEARCH APPROACH, TOWARD THE SYSTEMIC TRANSFORMATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
Keywords:
Action-Research process, auto-eco-organization, PLOCAL cybernetic process, participative grass roots process, transdisciplinary knowledgeAbstract
The larger system is the real world. It is the framework, or the reference context for a viable process of open systems intervention. The educative and cultural system is a very complex system for a systemic transformation process. We can use a cybernetic Participative Action Research, PAR process, to change a particular educational process with the use of a critical, and propositive approach. The process of change can be qualitative using a small scale. The form of knowledge for a participatory process of transformation should be transdisciplinary, to include the different types of knowledge of a relevant and plural group of social actors involved in the educational process.
The systemic process of transformation is a cyberntetic PAR process (Fals Borda, 1998). Through this process of change we link the auto, or internal system, with the eco or external system as a creative process or auto-eco organization (Morin, 1999). This is a qualitative participative process for the integral transformation of an educational process with the intervention of relevant social actors. It can address in the educational system the critical social and environmental problematic situation.
In this paper we present a brief description of a recent application in an alternative educational network. This qualitative complex organization is organized by an independent network of conscious social actors involved in different levels of the educational process at many public and private educative institutions in Mexico, and in other countries. The name of the mexican network is: Consejo de Transformacion Educativa, CTE, or Education Transformation Council, ETC. It is a qualitative small scale process for the systemic transformation of the mexican educational process, it is an alternative social laboratory of change.