Foreword: Technologies, learning and culture across disciplines: International perspectives

Abstract

Guest Edited Special Issue - Editorial Abstract by Madeleine Sclater (Glasgow School of Art, UK) and Professor Vic Lally (University of Glasgow, UK) The nexus of Technologies, Learning and Cultures is a complex area of study that is currently under-researched. It could be argued that this collection of papers itself represents an experiment in interdisciplinary research. In bringing these papers together, as guest editors, we have found the richness and diversity they contain to be a reminder of the complexity of this nexus. It is also a challenge: to synthesise some of the fundamental undercurrents and discontinuities that the papers clearly reveal, and to remain open to the incoherencies and conflicts that are also uncovered. The special issue has a very broad scope, including policy and educational systems analysis, quasi-experimental work, theoretical studies, as well as comparative work, and informal and mobile learning. These studies embrace disciplinary perspectives as diverse as Art and Design Education, Engineering, Mathematics, and Education. The featured research frameworks include participatory work, collaborative action research, and arts-based methods, as well as more formal mixed method studies. Major themes of sustainability, inequality, and employment cut across political contexts from Europe to Asia, Africa and Australasia. The settings feature practices from the design studio to the mathematics classroom, and include both formal and informal learning designs. Furthermore, the technologies of learning embraced in the research collected here inevitably transform and challenge our notions of place, as teachers, learners and researchers. Mobile learning, and three-dimensional simulations of the real-world act as a serious stimulus to methodological diversity and innovation. It has been a privilege to edit and present this work; we hope that it will serve as a platform for future study.