The Materiality of Learning
Technology and Knowledge in Educational Practice

Based on classroom ethnography, Sørensen investigates how different forms of learning arise when different learning materials are involved.

Estrid Sørensen (Author)

9780521182713, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 February 2011

226 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.31 kg

“The Materiality of Learning presents a refreshing and insightful account of technology in schools. Sørensen gives a rich empirical description of how several kinds of technology – from virtual worlds and blogs to more traditional educational tools – helped constitute activity in a fourth grade classroom. She uses her empirical case to push forward an important set of cross-disciplinary issues, illustrating how learning is spread across systems of people and objects and demonstrating the power of objects as equal participants in cognitive activity. The book will be useful to scholars across anthropology, psychology, and educational research, who can use a clear but complex empirical case of technology in the classroom that skillfully uses theoretical innovations from science and technology studies to analyze classroom learning as a material process.”
—Stanton Wortham, University of Pennsylvania

The field of educational research lacks a methodology for the study of learning that does not begin with humans, their aims, and their interests. The Materiality of Learning seeks to overcome this human-centered mentality by developing a novel spatial approach to the materiality of learning. Drawing on science and technology studies (STS), Estrid Sørensen compares an Internet-based 3D virtual environment project in a fourth-grade class with the class's work with traditional learning materials, including blackboards, textbooks, notebooks, pencils, and rulers. Taking into account pupils' and teachers' physical bodies, Professor Sørensen analyzes the multiple forms of technology, knowledge, and presence that are enacted with the materials. Featuring detailed ethnographic descriptions and useful end-of-chapter summaries, this book is an important reference for professionals and graduate or postgraduate students interested in a variety of fields, including educational studies, educational psychology, social anthropology, and STS.

1. Introduction: a minimal methodology
2. Components and opponents: designing the Femtedit Network
3. Forms of technology
4. Forms of knowledge
5. Forms of presence
6. Conclusion: the materiality of learning.

Subject Areas: Educational psychology [JNC], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR]