The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze meanings that the term complexity assumes in Brazilian theses and dissertations in the field of environmental education, especially when addressing socio-environmental issues. The studies were selected from the database Theses and Dissertations of EArte (http://earte.net/), which is a repository for Brazilian theses and dissertations in the field of environmental education. Twenty theses and dissertations were selected to compose the documental corpus of this investigation. For the investigation, content analysis was used. Three a priori categories were defined to analyze the meanings of Complexity: (1) complex thinking: organized from Morin’s ideas of Dialogical Principle, Organizational Recursion Principle, Holographic Principle, and Scienza Nuova; (2) complex systems: organized from uncertainty, dynamics, and open systems groupings; and (3) complexification organized from the environmental complexity grouping. The complex thinking category was the most frequent in the analyses, identified in fifteen of the twenty theses and dissertations. In twelve of the twenty dissertations, the category of complex systems was identified, while in four of the twenty, the category complexification was referenced. These studies show a greater inclination towards the ideas of Edgar Morin and Enrique Leff.

这项研究的目的是识别和分析在环境教育领域，尤其是在解决社会环境问题时，“复杂性”一词在巴西的论文和学位论文中假定的含义。这些研究选自EArte的论文和学位论文数据库（http://earte.net/），该数据库是巴西环境教育领域的论文和学位论文的资料库。选择二十篇论文和论文组成文献语料库这项调查。为了进行调查，使用了内容分析。定义了三个先验类别来分析复杂性的含义：（1）复杂思维：根据莫林的对话原理，组织递归原理，全息原理和新科学理论进行组织; （2）复杂系统：由不确定性，动态性和开放系统分组组成；（3）根据环境复杂性分组组织的复杂化。在二十篇论文和论文中的十五篇中，复杂思维类别是分析中最常见的类别。在二十篇论文中的十二篇中，确定了复杂系统的类别，而在二十篇论文中的四篇中，指出了复杂系统的类别。这些研究显示出对埃德加·莫林（Edgar Morin）和恩里克·莱夫（Enrique Leff）的想法的更大倾向。