Abstract
This article aims to clarify the concept of context. Our motivation is the lack of consensus on what context is, despite common accept of the claim that learning is context-dependent to some degree, and despite a widespread interest in researching learning in specific contexts such as museums, classrooms, or workplace settings. We provide a minimal concept which is applicable to all references to context, properly construed. We point out that more general considerations of contextuality and compositionality must be reconciled and balanced out if the role of context in relation to learning is to be understood. We then flesh out the minimal concept with a typology of context categories relevant for understanding the significance of context for learning. The categories are location, understood both in a physical-geographical and an institutional sense, knowledge domain, sequence of occurrences, activity, historical period, social relationship, and horizon of significance. We illustrate the usefulness of the typology through pointing out how it could help clarify discussions about transfer of knowledge and skills.
Highlights
For the past century, educational thinkers have stressed the significance of context for learning.Dewey claimed that context is the taken-for-granted spatial and temporal background and selective interest of the agent, upon which the content of thought stands out [1]
We have clarified the concept of context
This is motivated by the recognition that there is hardly any consensus within the educational field on what “context” is, despite common accept of the claim that learning is context-dependent to some degree, and despite a widespread interest in researching learning in specific contexts such as museums, classrooms, or workplace settings
Summary
Educational thinkers have stressed the significance of context for learning. Theorists, who do analyze the concept, tend to do so from a particular educational- or learning-theoretical point of view, which makes their analyses less useful for other educational research approaches This is the case for the analyses provided by Dewey and Bateson, respectively (cf above). We identify two functional roles that the concept exhibits across different usages and offer some general observations concerning the limits of appeals to context within the educational field. On this background, we provide an analytical typology of categories important to understanding the significance of context for learning. Our claim is that the identified senses are relevant to consider irrespective of the more specific approach to learning one adheres to, though how these senses will be considered will likely differ between approaches
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