This article argues that Education Studies needs to develop its existing interdisciplinarity understanding of structures and agencies by giving greater attention to the modern process theories of self-organisation in the physical, biological, psychological and social sciences, sometimes given the umbrella term "complexity theory". The…

For over 50 years, developmental psychologists have conducted research around the world to understand the relation between culture and cognition. In fact, psychologists have been interested in this topic for over a century. In the late 1800s, Wundt introduced "Elements of Folk Psychology," the study of how culture becomes part of higher…

This paper argues that feelings of agency are linked to human well-being through a sequence of adaptive mechanisms that promote human development, once existential conditions become permissive. In the first part, we elaborate on the evolutionary logic of this model and outline why an evolutionary perspective is helpful to understand changes in…

In this article I argue that evolutionary theorizing can help sociologists and feminists better understand gender inequality. Evolutionary theory explains why control of the sexuality of young women is a priority across most human societies both past and present. Evolutionary psychology has extended our understanding of male violence against…

This article discusses the fundamental difference between the poststructuralist and evolutionary perspective of the postmodern emphasis on multiculturalism. The author discusses how Michael Foucault's relativistic view of the episteme is useful to the extent that it describes how individuals and groups of people generate knowledge, but because it…

Opines that there are three benefits to incorporating biology and other natural sciences into social studies programs: (1) students are exposed to interdisciplinary thinking; (2) social studies materials are placed on a more secure scientific basis; and (3) a biologized social studies program reveals human nature uncontaminated by recent culture.…

This paper distinguishes between two ecological perspectives on organizational evolution: population ecology, which limits investigation to evolutionary change in established populations, and community ecology, which focuses on the rise and fall of populations themselves as basic units of evolutionary change. These perspectives produce contrasting…

Be it metaphysics, theology, or some other unifying framework, humans have long sought to determine "first principles" underlying knowledge. Larry Arnhart continues in this vein, positing a Darwinian web of genetic, cultural, and cognitive evolution to explain our social behavior in terms of human nature as governed by biology. He leaves it to us…

This paper argues that the emerging discipline of sociobiology has the potential of doing what epistemologists, developmental psychologists, psychoanalysts, and ethologists have been unable to do: to provide a theory documenting our inherited dispositions as reflected in cultural evolution and personal development. Accordingly, the paper begins…

Educational administration, like many other social sciences, has traditionally followed the rubrics of classical science with its emphasis on prediction and control and attempts to understand the whole by understanding in ever finer detail how the parts fit together. However, the "new" science (especially quantum mechanics, complexity,…

Argues that apparent incompatibilities between social exchange and developmental perspectives can be resolved by using evolutionary theories to extend the logic of social exchange. Discusses the implications of an expanded evolutionary perspective on social exchange and development, proposing that developmental context and genetic relatedness may…