Publications and books

Browse published research and work still in development. For an introduction without specialist vocabulary, start with AE explained or the guide to the ideas. Publication status was checked on 18 September 2026.

What do the publication labels mean?

Published research: work released by the journal or publisher named in the entry.
Preprint: a manuscript shared publicly before journal or book publication; see the entry for its review status.
Working paper or manuscript: an account being developed and discussed. It may not have been peer reviewed.
Submitted: sent to a journal or publisher; this does not mean it has been accepted.

Each entry states what is known about that particular work. A proposal or developing book is not a published book.

Recent published research

Generative AI as meaning-mediating infrastructure in education: a critical integrative review of inclusion, exclusion, and semantic transduction — Steven Watson, Christian Morgner and Erik Brezovec. AI & Society, published 3 September 2026. Read the article.

A phenomenological response to the cognitive-discursive debate in the case of beliefs conceptualisation in mathematics education — Gosia Marschall, Lovisa Sumpter and Steven Watson. Mathematics Education Research Journal, published 16 March 2026. Read the article.

Programmable support: generative AI, behavioural influence, and the mediation of meaning in education — Steven Watson and Megan Ennion. Learning, Media and Technology, March 2026. Article DOI.

Reconstructing GenAI in education: a social systems theory approach — Brezovec, Ježovita, Watson and Balabanić. British Journal of Sociology of Education, March 2026. Article DOI.

Reflexive ecologies of knowledge in the future of AI & Society — Watson, Gill, Shin and Ho. AI & Society, January 2026; editorial. Read the editorial.

Integrating Generative AI in Education: Affordances, Issues, and Directions — Jiaqi Wang and Steven Watson. In Social Robots and Artificial Intelligence in Education, January 2026, pp. 353–377. Read the chapter.

Selected foundations in the published work

Observing the Environment of Technology — Steven Watson. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 2025. Article DOI.
ChatGPT and the entangled evolution of society, education, and technology: A systems theory perspective — Steven Watson and Jonathan Romic. European Educational Research Journal, 2025 issue year; first published online in 2024. Article DOI.
The role of generative AI in academic and scientific authorship: An autopoietic perspective — Steven Watson, Erik Brezovec and Jonathan Romic. AI & Society, 2025. Article DOI.
A transdisciplinary study of a novice mathematics teacher’s instructional decision-making — Gosia Marschall, Steven Watson, Elizabeth Kimber and Louis Major. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 2025 issue year. Article DOI.
Guiding distinctions of social theory: Results from two online brainstormings and one quantitative analysis of the ISA Books of the XX Century corpus — Roth, Watson and colleagues. Current Sociology, 2025. Article DOI.

Working papers

Generative AI and the recursive constitution of operability — Steven Watson. Version 1, 18 September 2026. Cambridge EdgeLab working paper; not peer reviewed.

Uses an illustrative education case to ask how AI-generated suggestions become records or decisions, why corrections may fail to reach later decisions and how researchers could investigate this. Includes five proposals to test. Read the full paper · Download the PDF.

Public preprints and current theoretical development

Autopoietic Ecology: Rethinking Systems, Meaning, and Matter — Steven Watson and Erik Brezovec. The first public book preprint appeared in 2025; a substantially revised manuscript is now in development. Read the public preprint.

Ecological Hyper-Knots and Eigenforms: A Topological Generalization of Autopoietic Operations — public preprint, 2026. Preprint DOI.

Recent prepared work develops Rough Closure: The Operational Texture of Persistence in Autopoietic Ecology, The Mark in the Mesh, Toward a Mathematics of Rough Closure, and Autopoietic Ecological Political Economy: Hyperknots, Interface Debt and the Recursive Production of Economic Order. Preparation or scholarly circulation does not establish a public deposit or peer-reviewed publication.

The September architecture whitepaper AEAI: Meaning mediation, constraint continuity and accountable control sets out a design and evaluation programme. It is a research whitepaper, distinct from the submitted AI-collectives article.

Current articles and collaborative writing

Control within and over collectives of artificial intelligence agents: submitted and acknowledged on 17 September.
Compensatory work and the reproduction of organisational burdens: revised submission package prepared for Organization on 18 September 2026; not yet submitted.
Why similar urban parks diverge: revised submission confirmed on 17 September.
Generative AI, Technology, and the Ecology of Persistence: A Response to Tække: revised manuscript under review, based on the author’s current status record.
Recursive Authorisation and the Reproduction of Institutional Programs: revised submission package prepared; submission not yet confirmed.
Meaning Mediation in AI Assisted Mathematical Proving: submission package prepared; submission not yet confirmed.
Affect, Reflexivity and Professional Becoming: advanced collaborative draft with Gosia Marschall.
How AI classifications acquire institutional authority: development draft and small-pilot proposal circulated to Gustavo Markier and Erik Brezovec on 18 September.
Autopoiesis and the Mangle: discussion draft sent to Andrew Pickering on 18 September.
Luhmann, autopoietic ecology and the silent observation of trust in dental care: revised chapter for coauthor discussion.
Afterword to Niklas Luhmann’s Political Sociology: production-stage work with Barry Gibson for the volume edited by Christian Morgner; final publication date awaits confirmation.
Civic trust and knowledge ecologies: continuing conceptual work on democratic communication, misinformation and participation, connected to I-CIVIC. Journal submission and acceptance of this strand are not confirmed.

Civic education and public discussion

I-CIVIC and the turn to an ecological narrative — CRASSH public blog, March 2026. See I-CIVIC for the project context. Conceptual writing, project communications and empirical findings are identified separately.

Books in development

Autopoietic Ecology: Rethinking Systems, Meaning, and Matter, with Erik Brezovec: a substantially revised manuscript following the 2025 public preprint; proposal submitted on 18 September.
Generative AI and the Mediation of Meaning: Education, Society and Autopoietic Ecology: a revised manuscript developing understanding, judgement and participation in AI-mediated education; publisher submission package prepared.
Living on the Edge: Why Our Systems Keep Failing Us—and What It Takes to Change Them: a general-reader account of institutional persistence and change; proposal and sample chapters submitted on 18 September.
Living Under Pressure: Anxiety, Mental Health and Neurodiversity in Autopoietic Ecology: revised manuscript circulated for informal feedback on 16 September.

Publisher approaches and proposal submissions are stages of development; these listings do not announce publication contracts.

The Research Programme explains how these projects fit together. Further published work and public preprints can be found through Steven’s ResearchGate profile and University profile.