Understanding learning cultures

Abstract

This paper sets out an explanation about the nature of learning cultures and how they work. In so doing, it directly addresses some key weaknesses in current situated learning theoretical writing, by working to overcome unhelpful dualisms, such as the individual and the social, and structure and agency. It does this through extensive use of some of Pierre Bourdieu's key ideas-seeing learning cultures operating as fields of force. This makes clear the relationality of learning cultures, and the fact that they operate across conventionally drawn boundaries of scale. The paper argues that this approach also paves the way for the full incorporation of individual learners into situated learning accounts.