Steven Watson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3612992 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven Watson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven |
| FAMILY NAME | Watson |
| SIGNATURE | WATSON S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4818-1472 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Generative AI as meaning-mediating infrastructure in education: A critical integrative review of inclusion, exclusion, and semantic transduction
This article offers a critical integrative review of current debates on generative AI (GenAI), educational inequality, and inclusion/exclusion. Rather than treating GenAI as either a neutral access tool or a simple amplifier of disadvantage, it analyses AI as meaning-mediating infrastructure that reshapes the communicative forms through which learners become addressable, recognised, supported, and evaluated. The review synthesises work from inclu…
A phenomenological response to the cognitive-discursive debate in the case of beliefs conceptualisation in mathematics education
In this article we step away from the traditional dichotomy in mathematics education research on beliefs, arguing that the divide between cognitive and discursive perspectives is artificial and counterproductive. Instead of viewing beliefs through the opposing frameworks, we propose a dynamic, constructionist model of beliefs formation rooted in lived experience. Drawing on multidisciplinary insights, we conceptualise beliefs as evolving, meaning…
Programmable support: Generative AI, behavioural influence, and the mediation of meaning in education
As generative AI becomes embedded in education, research has largely emphasised outputs, ethics, and performance, with less attention to how these systems shape learners’ conduct and dispositions through interaction. This conceptual paper addresses that gap by treating large language models (LLMs) not as neutral tools but as meaning-mediating infrastructures: interactive systems that organise what kinds of learning moves become easy, sensible, an…
Reflexive ecologies of knowledge in the future of AI & Society
Reconstructing GenAI in education: A social systems theory approach
Building on Luhmann’s theory of social systems, we analyse education as an operationally closed, autopoietic system that can relate to GenAI only by translating it into educational communication. The central claim is that GenAI does not enter education as a ready-made object with fixed effects; it becomes meaningful only through educational distinctions, expectations, and routines that enable the system to reproduce itself under heightened contin…
ChatGPT and the entangled evolution of society, education, and technology: A systems theory perspective
This paper presents a novel contribution to the discourse surrounding Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT in relation to education and society by using systems theory. We argue that ChatGPT can be understood not just as an ‘artificial’ intelligence but that it is entangled in the evolution of society and therefore education. ChatGPT is a subsystem of the autopoietic system of technology, which in modern society mediates between individual t…
The role of generative AI in academic and scientific authorship: An autopoietic perspective
The integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models like ChatGPT, presents new challenges as well as possibilities for scientific authorship. This paper draws on social systems theory to offer a nuanced understanding of the interplay between technology, individuals, society and scholarly authorial practices. This contrasts with orthodoxy, where individuals and technology are treated as essentialized enti…
Venturing into the Unknown: Critical Insights into Grey Areas and Pioneering Future Directions in Educational Generative AI Research
Theory and Methodology in Sociology–Guiding Distinction
This study analyses how theory and methodology function as guiding distinctions in sociology, drawing upon Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. By examining fifteen Croatian sociologists who engaged with a hypothetical case study on generative artificial intelligence in labour markets, we analysed their theoretical and methodological approaches. The findings reveal a distinct ‘methodological imperative,’ as participants tended to align more ar…
Observing the Environment of Technology
This paper explores the conceptualisation of technology as an autopoietic system, addressing the limitations of instrumentalist, deterministic and human‐centred perspectives in understanding the relationship between technology and society. By framing technology as a self‐referential, operationally closed system, the analysis highlights its capacity to generate and sustain its own structures through dynamic feedback loops with human agency, societ…
The moral positioning of education policy publics: How social media is used to wedge an issue
Social media has become a core feature in policy development and enactment. This article extends current features of digital policy sociology to include the entanglement of education policy development processes with new media, paying particular attention to how two conservative think tanks in Australia have strategically used social media in their lobbying practices. By concentrating on policy publics, we show how The Centre for Independent Stud…
Online educational populism and New Right 2.0 in Australia and England
In this paper, we consider educational populism on social media in England and Australia. In both contexts, academics are positioned as a key constituent of an unjust elite with previously voiceless teachers (UK) and students (Australia) framed as the ‘just people’. While populism often speaks to nations and nationalism, as ‘the people’ against an ‘unjust elite’ or ‘other’, micropopulism concerns a particular community against an elite. Although …
Teacher self-efficacy as an aspect of narrative self-schemata
This study represents a theoretical investigation of teacher self-efficacy using abductive interpretative phenomenological analysis in the context of initial teacher education. We reveal the process through which a pre-service teacher's self-schema adapts in response to his first classroom teaching experience. We also observe that narrative has a role in this self-schema adaptation. Consequently, we show that teacher self-efficacy is an aspect of…
New Right 2.0: Teacher populism on social media in England
This article is concerned with teacher populism on social media in England. This has grown in the last 10 years, facilitated by Twitter. While it appears to be a response to challenging working conditions and declining pay, it has largely been driven by conservative political strategy, an adaptation of the New Right coalition between social conservatives and economic liberals of the 1970s. New Right 2 . 0 , as I frame it here, is a New Right proj…
Meta‐analysis of digit ratio 2D: 4D shows greater sex difference in the right hand
Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism
Perhaps the oddest and most influential collaboration in the history of American modernism was hatched in 1926, when a young Virgil Thomson knocked on Gertrude Stein's door in Paris. Eight years later, their opera Four in Three Acts became a sensation - the longest-running opera in Broadway history to date and the most widely reported cultural event of its time. Prepare for Saints is Steven Watson's brilliant and absorbing account of how that rev…
The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920-1930
New Right 2.0: Teacher populism on social media in England
This article is concerned with teacher populism on social media in England. This has grown in the last 10 years, facilitated by Twitter. While it appears to be a response to challenging working conditions and declining pay, it has largely been driven by conservative political strategy, an adaptation of the New Right coalition between social conservatives and economic liberals of the 1970s. New Right 2 . 0 , as I frame it here, is a New Right proj…
Venturing into the Unknown: Critical Insights into Grey Areas and Pioneering Future Directions in Educational Generative AI Research
Theory and Methodology in Sociology–Guiding Distinction
This study analyses how theory and methodology function as guiding distinctions in sociology, drawing upon Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. By examining fifteen Croatian sociologists who engaged with a hypothetical case study on generative artificial intelligence in labour markets, we analysed their theoretical and methodological approaches. The findings reveal a distinct ‘methodological imperative,’ as participants tended to align more ar…
Observing the Environment of Technology
This paper explores the conceptualisation of technology as an autopoietic system, addressing the limitations of instrumentalist, deterministic and human‐centred perspectives in understanding the relationship between technology and society. By framing technology as a self‐referential, operationally closed system, the analysis highlights its capacity to generate and sustain its own structures through dynamic feedback loops with human agency, societ…
The moral positioning of education policy publics: How social media is used to wedge an issue
Social media has become a core feature in policy development and enactment. This article extends current features of digital policy sociology to include the entanglement of education policy development processes with new media, paying particular attention to how two conservative think tanks in Australia have strategically used social media in their lobbying practices. By concentrating on policy publics, we show how The Centre for Independent Stud…
Online educational populism and New Right 2.0 in Australia and England
In this paper, we consider educational populism on social media in England and Australia. In both contexts, academics are positioned as a key constituent of an unjust elite with previously voiceless teachers (UK) and students (Australia) framed as the ‘just people’. While populism often speaks to nations and nationalism, as ‘the people’ against an ‘unjust elite’ or ‘other’, micropopulism concerns a particular community against an elite. Although …
Teacher self-efficacy as an aspect of narrative self-schemata
This study represents a theoretical investigation of teacher self-efficacy using abductive interpretative phenomenological analysis in the context of initial teacher education. We reveal the process through which a pre-service teacher's self-schema adapts in response to his first classroom teaching experience. We also observe that narrative has a role in this self-schema adaptation. Consequently, we show that teacher self-efficacy is an aspect of…
The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920-1930
Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism
Perhaps the oddest and most influential collaboration in the history of American modernism was hatched in 1926, when a young Virgil Thomson knocked on Gertrude Stein's door in Paris. Eight years later, their opera Four in Three Acts became a sensation - the longest-running opera in Broadway history to date and the most widely reported cultural event of its time. Prepare for Saints is Steven Watson's brilliant and absorbing account of how that rev…
Meta‐analysis of digit ratio 2D: 4D shows greater sex difference in the right hand
Online educational populism and New Right 2.0 in Australia and England
In this paper, we consider educational populism on social media in England and Australia. In both contexts, academics are positioned as a key constituent of an unjust elite with previously voiceless teachers (UK) and students (Australia) framed as the ‘just people’. While populism often speaks to nations and nationalism, as ‘the people’ against an ‘unjust elite’ or ‘other’, micropopulism concerns a particular community against an elite. Although …
Teacher self-efficacy as an aspect of narrative self-schemata
This study represents a theoretical investigation of teacher self-efficacy using abductive interpretative phenomenological analysis in the context of initial teacher education. We reveal the process through which a pre-service teacher's self-schema adapts in response to his first classroom teaching experience. We also observe that narrative has a role in this self-schema adaptation. Consequently, we show that teacher self-efficacy is an aspect of…
New Right 2.0: Teacher populism on social media in England
This article is concerned with teacher populism on social media in England. This has grown in the last 10 years, facilitated by Twitter. While it appears to be a response to challenging working conditions and declining pay, it has largely been driven by conservative political strategy, an adaptation of the New Right coalition between social conservatives and economic liberals of the 1970s. New Right 2 . 0 , as I frame it here, is a New Right proj…
The moral positioning of education policy publics: How social media is used to wedge an issue
Social media has become a core feature in policy development and enactment. This article extends current features of digital policy sociology to include the entanglement of education policy development processes with new media, paying particular attention to how two conservative think tanks in Australia have strategically used social media in their lobbying practices. By concentrating on policy publics, we show how The Centre for Independent Stud…
ChatGPT and the entangled evolution of society, education, and technology: A systems theory perspective
This paper presents a novel contribution to the discourse surrounding Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT in relation to education and society by using systems theory. We argue that ChatGPT can be understood not just as an ‘artificial’ intelligence but that it is entangled in the evolution of society and therefore education. ChatGPT is a subsystem of the autopoietic system of technology, which in modern society mediates between individual t…
The role of generative AI in academic and scientific authorship: An autopoietic perspective
The integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models like ChatGPT, presents new challenges as well as possibilities for scientific authorship. This paper draws on social systems theory to offer a nuanced understanding of the interplay between technology, individuals, society and scholarly authorial practices. This contrasts with orthodoxy, where individuals and technology are treated as essentialized enti…
Venturing into the Unknown: Critical Insights into Grey Areas and Pioneering Future Directions in Educational Generative AI Research
Theory and Methodology in Sociology–Guiding Distinction
This study analyses how theory and methodology function as guiding distinctions in sociology, drawing upon Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. By examining fifteen Croatian sociologists who engaged with a hypothetical case study on generative artificial intelligence in labour markets, we analysed their theoretical and methodological approaches. The findings reveal a distinct ‘methodological imperative,’ as participants tended to align more ar…
Observing the Environment of Technology
This paper explores the conceptualisation of technology as an autopoietic system, addressing the limitations of instrumentalist, deterministic and human‐centred perspectives in understanding the relationship between technology and society. By framing technology as a self‐referential, operationally closed system, the analysis highlights its capacity to generate and sustain its own structures through dynamic feedback loops with human agency, societ…
Generative AI as meaning-mediating infrastructure in education: A critical integrative review of inclusion, exclusion, and semantic transduction
This article offers a critical integrative review of current debates on generative AI (GenAI), educational inequality, and inclusion/exclusion. Rather than treating GenAI as either a neutral access tool or a simple amplifier of disadvantage, it analyses AI as meaning-mediating infrastructure that reshapes the communicative forms through which learners become addressable, recognised, supported, and evaluated. The review synthesises work from inclu…
A phenomenological response to the cognitive-discursive debate in the case of beliefs conceptualisation in mathematics education
In this article we step away from the traditional dichotomy in mathematics education research on beliefs, arguing that the divide between cognitive and discursive perspectives is artificial and counterproductive. Instead of viewing beliefs through the opposing frameworks, we propose a dynamic, constructionist model of beliefs formation rooted in lived experience. Drawing on multidisciplinary insights, we conceptualise beliefs as evolving, meaning…
Programmable support: Generative AI, behavioural influence, and the mediation of meaning in education
As generative AI becomes embedded in education, research has largely emphasised outputs, ethics, and performance, with less attention to how these systems shape learners’ conduct and dispositions through interaction. This conceptual paper addresses that gap by treating large language models (LLMs) not as neutral tools but as meaning-mediating infrastructures: interactive systems that organise what kinds of learning moves become easy, sensible, an…
Reflexive ecologies of knowledge in the future of AI & Society
Reconstructing GenAI in education: A social systems theory approach
Building on Luhmann’s theory of social systems, we analyse education as an operationally closed, autopoietic system that can relate to GenAI only by translating it into educational communication. The central claim is that GenAI does not enter education as a ready-made object with fixed effects; it becomes meaningful only through educational distinctions, expectations, and routines that enable the system to reproduce itself under heightened contin…
Sociology (8 works) · Political science (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Generative grammar (4 works) · Digital Education and Society (3 works) · Engineering ethics (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Political theory and Gramsci (3 works)