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. Selected publication and book entries were updated on 6 October 2026. Other entries retain their individual status dates; submitted and developing work is identified separately.

How the work fits together

The connecting question is what enables learning, meaning, judgement and trust to continue—and what happens when those conditions fail. Earlier studies of teacher learning and educational authority lead into work on AI meaning mediation, institutional decisions and the conditions of persistence.

The books develop distinct parts of that inquiry: the AE monograph sets out the theory; meaning mediation and Living with AI examine understanding and educational judgement; Living with education follows educational authority and public life; Living Under Pressure and Living with Institutions address different aspects of everyday capacity, trust and institutional life.

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, Technology, and the Ecology of Persistence: A Response to Tække — published online in Systems Research and Behavioral Science; publication notification received 5 October 2026. Read the article.
Contribution: Examines how generative AI becomes consequential through interpretation and organisational decisions, and how the conditions for its continuing use are sustained.

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.
Contribution: Connects educational AI with inclusion, exclusion and the movement of meaning across technical and social settings.

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.
Contribution: Develops a phenomenological contribution to the debate about how beliefs are conceptualised in mathematics education.

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.
Contribution: Examines behavioural influence and the mediation of meaning in educational uses of generative AI.

Reconstructing GenAI in education: a social systems theory approach — Brezovec, Ježovita, Watson and Balabanić. British Journal of Sociology of Education, March 2026. Article DOI.
Contribution: Offers a conceptual systems-theory account of how educational communication gives generative AI its significance, with an illustrative documentary case.

Reflexive ecologies of knowledge in the future of AI & Society — Watson, Gill, Shin and Ho. AI & Society, January 2026; editorial. Read the editorial.
Contribution: An editorial contribution to discussion of the knowledge practices and future direction of AI & Society.

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.
Contribution: Examines educational affordances, issues and directions for generative AI.

Selected foundations in the published work

Observing the Environment of Technology — Steven Watson. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 2025. Article DOI.
Contribution: Develops the systems-theoretical inquiry into technology and how its environment is observed.
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.
Contribution: Examines the relationships among generative AI, education and society through systems theory.
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.
Contribution: Develops an autopoietic perspective on authorship and scholarly work with generative AI.
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.
Contribution: Examines instructional decision-making in a novice teacher’s practice.
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.
Contribution: Investigates the distinctions organising social theory through collaborative and corpus-based inquiry.

Working papers

Using generative AI in scholarly practice through Autopoietic Ecology — Steven Watson. EdgeLab working paper; not peer reviewed. A reflexive account of AI-assisted reviewing and writing, asking how sources, authorial decisions and correction pathways can remain inspectable. Read the introduction and access the manuscript.

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: submitted to Organization on 28 September 2026; awaiting an editorial response.
Why similar urban parks diverge: revised submission confirmed on 17 September.
Recursive Authorisation and the Reproduction of Institutional Programs: working manuscript; journal submission not confirmed.
Meaning Mediation in AI Assisted Mathematical Proving: working manuscript; journal submission not confirmed.
Affect, Reflexivity and Professional Becoming: advanced collaborative draft with Gosia Marschall.
How AI classifications acquire institutional authority: developing article and proposed pilot with Gustavo Markier and Erik Brezovec; no completed pilot or journal submission is announced.
Autopoiesis and the Mangle: discussion draft engaging Andrew Pickering’s work; any joint project remains to be agreed.
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

These seven projects address different questions. Working manuscripts and proposals are developing work; none of these entries announces a publication contract.

Autopoietic Ecology: Rethinking Systems, Meaning, and Matter, with Erik Brezovec. Develops the theoretical account of operations, meaning and ecological dependencies. Revised manuscript following the 2025 public preprint; proposal submitted in September 2026.
Generative AI and the Mediation of Meaning: Education, Society and Autopoietic Ecology. Develops an account of understanding, judgement and participation in AI-mediated education. Revised working manuscript; publisher submission not confirmed.
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 possibilities for change. Proposal and sample chapters submitted in September 2026.
Living Under Pressure: Anxiety, Mental Health and Neurodiversity in Autopoietic Ecology. Examines the conditions under which everyday life becomes more or less sustainable. Revised working manuscript in author review; reader feedback and source checks continue.
Living with Institutions. Develops a broader inquiry into institutions, decisions and trust, including their historical and theoretical foundations. A separate working manuscript; author review and publication route remain open.
Living with AI: Educational Judgment in Practice. Turns questions about AI into situated educational judgement across learning, assessment and professional practice. Revised working manuscript.
Living with education: An autopoietic ecology of educational authority, media and public life. Develops a historical and sociological account of educational authority and public controversy. Revised working manuscript, distinct from Living with AI.

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.