Invited symposium-Regional and socio-epistemic heterogeneity in the learning sciences: Supporting transnational dialogues on equity and justice

Abstract

The ISLS has long been focusing on innovative learning that supports inclusive socio-emotional and collaborative practices, and more recent research has taken up political and ethical dimensions of human learning as central to design, practice, partnership and research. The society is also taking concrete steps towards structural changes in its own conduct to meaningfully engage with heterogeneity-including sociohistorical, cultural, economic, geographic, political, and socio-epistemic difference-in ways that understand the centrality of variability to learning. This symposium presents activities of the ISLS to support the spirit of such research and promote multiple perspectives on diversity, equity, and justice. Researchers present their own view on ISLS research, report on their concepts and results on community building, knowledge sharing and consolidation, collaboration and cross-pollination in this context. The symposium thus seeks to increase mutual awareness between ISLS and scholarly and educational communities with synergistic interests and expertise, as well as perspectives that help question the presumed normative (e. g., Western) assumptions that have often shaped research within the history of the field. It thus illustrates and creates space to wrestle with the society's initiative to promote structural change and meaningful socio-epistemic expansion.

Full text

Invited symposium—Regional and socio-epistemic heterogeneity in
the learning sciences: Supporting transnational dialogues on
equity and justice
Dimitra Tsovaltzi, DFKI, Germany, dimitra.tsovaltzi@dfki.de (co-chair)
Suraj Uttamchandani, Indiana University, USA, sjuttam25@gmail.com (co-chair)
Shirin Vossoughi, Northwestern University, USA, shirinvossoughi@gmail.com (co-chair)
Kris Gutiérrez,University of California Berkeley, USA, gutierrkd@berkeley.edu
Chandan Dasgupta, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India, cdasgupta@iitb.ac.in
Tugce Aldemir, University of Connecticut, USA, tugce.aldemir@uconn.edu
Leema Berland, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, lberland@wisc.edu
Maxine McKinney de Royston, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, mckinneyderoyston@wisc.edu
Roberto de Roock, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, roberto.deroock@gmail.com
Rod Roscoe, Arizona State University, USAwork.roscoe@gmail.com
Dengting Boyanton, Sino-American Educational Research Association, USA, dengting.boyanton@yahoo.com
Mmantsetsa Marope, International Bureau of Education, Switzerland, ptm.marope@gmail.com
Victor R. Lee, Stanford University, vrlee@stanford.edu
José W. Meléndez, University of Oregon, USA, jmelende@uoregon.edu
Joshua Radinsky, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA, joshuar@uic.edu
Katie Headrick Taylor, University of Washington, USA, kht126@uw.edu
Jasmine Y. Ma, New York University, USA, j.ma@nyu.edu,
Emilia A. Nhalevilo, Universidade Pedagogica in Maputo, Mozambique, emiliafonso@gmail.com
Ananda Marin, University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA, amarin1@ucla.edu
Sarah C. Radke, New York University, USA, scr274@nyu.edu
Marit Dewhurst, City College of New York, USA, mdewhurst@ccny.cuny.edu
Rishi Krishnamoorthy, Rutgers University, USA, rishi.krish@rutgers.edu
Arundhati Velamur, New York University, aav268@nyu.edu
Deborah Dutta, Institute of Rural Management Anand, India, debbiebornfree@gmail.com
Gayithri Jayathirtha, University of Pennsylvania, USA, gayithrij@gmail.com
Vishesh Kumar, Northwestern University, USA, visheshkay@gmail.com
Raquel Coelho,Stanford University, USA, rcoelho@stanford.edu
Paulo Blikstein, Columbia University, USA, paulob@tc.columbia.edu
Livia Macedo, Columbia University, USA, livia@fablearn.net
Fabio Campos, New York University, USA, fabioc@nyu.edu
Cassia Fernandez, University of São Paulo, Brazil, cassia.ofernandez@gmail.com
Tatiana Hochgreb, Stanford/Columbia Universities, USA, hochgreb@stanford.edu
Renato Russo, Columbia University, rfr2126@tc.columbia.edu
Adelmo Eloy, University of São Paulo, adelmo.eloy@usp.br
Jun Oshima, Shizuoka University, Japan, joshima@inf.shizuoka.ac.jp (discussant)
Ayush Gupta (they/them/theirs), Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, ayush@hbcse.tifr.res.in
(discussant)
Abstract: The ISLS has long been focusing on innovative learning that supports inclusive
socio-emotional and collaborative practices, and more recent research has taken up political
and ethical dimensions of human learning as central to design, practice, partnership and
research. The society is also taking concrete steps towards structural changes in its own
conduct to meaningfully engage with heterogeneity—including sociohistorical, cultural,
economic, geographic, political, and socio-epistemic difference—in ways that understand the
centrality of variability to learning. This symposium presents activities of the ISLS to support
the spirit of such research and promote multiple perspectives on diversity, equity, and justice.
Researchers present their own view on ISLS research, report on their concepts and results on
community building, knowledge sharing and consolidation, collaboration and cross-pollination
in this context. The symposium thus seeks to increase mutual awareness between ISLS and
scholarly and educational communities with synergistic interests and expertise, as well as
perspectives that help question the presumed normative (e. g., Western) assumptions that have
often shaped research within the history of the field. It thus illustrates and creates space to
wrestle with the society's initiative to promote structural change and meaningful socio-
epistemic expansion.

Overall focus of the symposium
The learning sciences (LS) investigate contexts, practices, and processes of learning, including their cognitive,
social, emotional, and cultural dimensions, and the conditions that support learning. ISLS has always placed
value on complex views of learning, such as those that attend to how people collaborate together (Palincsar,
1998), participate successfully in communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1992), and live culturally (Lee et
al., 2003). Socio-technical concepts have been researched that may endorse such practices (Stahl et al., 2006),
although less of this work explicitly focusses on heterogeneity as a resource (Tsovaltzi et al, 2019) and how this
can contribute to attitude change for learning and development (Puhl et al., 2015). A general tension has been
there since the early work in the LS on whether epistemic and socio-cultural diversity is seen as a challenge to
overcome or an asset of human learning (Cole, 1998; Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003). Research in other fields has
provided evidence on how one!s environment shapes the way we learn, for example through emotional
socialization (Curnow & Vea, 2020; De waal, 2016). It is becoming evident that besides new vocabularies and
ideologies, also new practices need to be adopted in which socio-cultural diversity pertains to epistemic
diversity and human learning.
Critical social theorists around the world have long highlighted the relationships between education
and oppression—as well as the role of education in struggles for freedom and self-determination (e.g.,
Ambedkar, 1935/2014; Fanon, 1952; Freire, 1970/2002; Fasheh, 1990; hooks, 1994), and concerns about the
politics and ethics of learning have been discussed in western education since Dewey in the early 1900.
However, these dimensions have only recently started to be included in the mainstream of the LS. ISLS scholars
have increasingly positioned heterogeneity as not only a reality of life, but in fact an urgent paradigm shift to
create equitable, effective, and just learning environments (Agarwal & Sengupta-Irving, 2019; Bang et al., 2012;
Rosebery et al., 2010; Takeuchi & Marin, 2022), while also stressing the role of technologies may play in
endorsing heterogeneity and justice (Hoadley & Uttamchandani, 2021; MITHOS, 2021). To fully incorporate
issues of heterogeneity, equity, and justice in LS research, we need to sharpen learning scientists’ abilities to
attune to the political and ethical dimensions of learning (e.g., Booker et al., 2014; Philip & Sengupta, 2021).
This means attending to questions of power, expansiveness and constraint, ethics/axiologies, epistemic
openness, and heterogeneity in our theories, methods, and designs—as well as in the structures of the LS. Here,
we present a series of projects undertaken or funded by the ISLS community in this spirit. These projects are
united by a commitment to socio-epistemic openness (Talero, 2008; Vossoughi, 2014), which requires (a) an
understanding of when, how, and why certain participation and perspectives have been de facto welcome in the
ISLS, as opposed to others, (b) a careful, non-defensive investment in broadening the perspectives and practices
in the community, and (c) listening to and dialoguing with people and places with a commitment to a
heterogenous LS for just and sustainable research, design, and practice.
This symposium advances the Society!s practical commitment to making equity and justice central to
its organizational structure, key activities, and membership. It also reflects the expansion of local and global
movements for justice (e. g. racial, economic, gender, decolonial, and academic), related calls for institutional
rather than symbolic or discursive change, and inquiry into how these movements are themselves key contexts
of collective learning (Curnow & Jurow, 2021). Thus, the symposium will involve discussion from several
initiatives. Together, the presentations in this symposium cross socio-historical, cultural, political, geographical
and epistemic boundaries to support socio-epistemic openness and heterogeneity. They address questions that
have been core to the LS since its inception, but also consider if and how core assumptions of the field can be
questioned in ways that expand our view of epistemologies of learning and human variation in educational
values, goals and practices (Lee et al., 2020). Importantly, this requires taking seriously the perspectives of those
who may, by exclusion or choice, not have been able to historically participate in or identify themselves with the
LS. We therefore recognize the importance of deepening connections with justice-oriented theories and
methodologies and heterogenous perspectives, particularly from communities historically marginalized in the
field (e. g. minoritized communities, Global South perspectives). The long history of research in this Society
underscores that these connections are crucial to rethinking theories and methods that reproduce (self-)presumed
normative conceptions of learning based on dominant populations or understand non-dominant populations only
in deficit or folklore terms. Ongoing dynamics of US-centrism and Western normativity, for instance, also mean
that the Society has important work to do to expand and enter a dialogue with researchers across the globe and
to build an expansive, and maybe collective, socio-epistemic awareness based on respecting heterogeneity. We
consider this as a reflection on‚ first structural steps towards this direction, while recognizing and celebrating
the inherent incompleteness of such an open-ended attempt.
Each contribution will be presented briefly. The discussants are Jun Oshima, who was cardinally
engaged in all of the structural initiatives included in this symposium, and Ayush Gupta, who has extensive
experience with questions of power and transnational politics as they relate to the study of learning. They will
participate in a half-hour plenary discussion after the presentations with all presenters. The panel will then
answer questions from the public. The following contributions will be presented.

Formation of the ISLS Equity and Justice Committee
Shirin Vossoughi, Kris Gutiérrez and the ISLS Equity and Justice Committee
The following statement is drawn from the charge of the ISLS Equity and Justice Committee, which began its
work in January 2021. The extent to which equity and justice thrives in institutions is both a moral question, and
a measure of the health and well-being of an organization as a whole. As a society focused on the improvement
of learning and educational processes, we therefore understand equity as both ideal and pragmatic, and as
addressing change across multiple scales—from institutions and the practices that sustain inequity to
transformation in individuals and communities!" agency and the kinds of knowledge that are valued and
leveraged across spaces. To this end, we understand equity not as an add-on, but as requiring ongoing reflection
and examination of existing norms and practices, and the development of commitments that can guide the work
of the International Society of the Learning Sciences.
As Learning Scientists, we are invested in scholarship that contributes to thriving learning
environments and communities. We understand learning as embedded in the settings of everyday life (e.g.,
families, schools, out-of-school settings, communities, etc.) and are committed to ensuring the dignity of
learners across these environments. Given our shared emphasis on studying human learning in real-world
environments, we understand that questions of equity/inequity are always present though they may take shape
differently across contexts, and therefore require deep reflection on the ethics and implications of our research.
This stance compels us towards ongoing reflexivity and examinations of the constructs and methodologies we
use in the work of design, teaching and learning, partnership and research. We also see the need for dynamic,
contextual, global and historicized views of diversity that avoid essentializing and embrace the crucial role of
multiple ways of knowing in the work of our field (Warren, et. al., 2020). Sharing scholarly work across cultural
and linguistic contexts, for example, is not merely a question of translation but of the socio-epistemic modes
through which knowledge is produced and made legible, and on whose terms. Our commitment to multiplicity
and pluralism therefore includes fostering the space to engage with various conceptions of justice, education and
learning, and to wrestle with the full complexity of social and cognitive phenomena in the conduct of our
science. Addressing multifaceted and dynamic conceptions of learning and expanding the foundational inter-
disciplinarity of the field should be key concerns of the Learning Sciences and Computer-Supported
Collaborative Learning.
In summary, here are some key principles to guide our collective thinking: (1) We see equity as
embedded in historical and everyday structures and practices that help shape institutions such as ISLS, as well
as disciplines and fields of study. (2) We understand equity as both ideal and pragmatic, and as addressing
change across multiple scales. (3) It is crucial to rethink theories and methods that reproduce presumed
normative conceptions of learning based on dominant populations, or understand non-dominant populations
only in deficit terms. (4) We see the need for dynamic, contextual, global and historicized views of diversity that
avoid essentializing and embrace the crucial role of multiple ways of knowing in the work of our field. (5) We
recognize the need for ongoing reflexivity and examinations of the constructs and methodologies we use in the
work of design, teaching and learning, partnership and research. (6) We therefore work to mobilize the
transformation of practices in our conferences, journals, mentorship, and other activities of the society in ways
that substantiate the above principles in practice.
Investing in emerging scholars to improve the learning sciences
Leema Berland, Maxine McKinney de Royston, Roberto de Roock, Rod Roscoe, Dengting Boyanton,
Mmantsetsa Marope, and Victor R. Lee
The multiple global crises of our times have prompted the LS community as other academic communities to
deeply consider how it can best address issues of equity of opportunities within its field, its respective
institutions, and organizations. This includes developing a collective awareness about systemic challenges and
adversities many scholars face in the pursuit, sustainment, and advancement of their scholarly work. Close
attention to inequality of opportunities has enhanced ISLS!s collective awareness of the ways in which assets
marginalized scholars bring to the field are systematically and systemically overlooked or unacknowledged. As
part of its efforts to address this systemic marginalization of groups of scholars, ISLS initiated the Emerging
Scholar Program. It is hoped that this program will- through recruitment and mentorship efforts- encourage and
empower scholars, who might have been traditionally marginalized, to engage with, and contribute to the
society. This program aims both to support emerging scholars in their own personal and professional trajectories
and to support intellectual, racial, and cultural diversity in the field. This initiative will be funded by the Wallace
Foundation which will provide five $10,000 grants a year for three years, for a total of 15 funded projects. These

projects must be led by junior scholars who have experienced professional marginalization and whose work (in
methods or in research topic) addresses inequities in education.
The goal of expanding both whose work, and what work, is valued and elevated within ISLS presented
our committee, in the inaugural year of the effort, with novel challenges. For example, addressing this goal
required ensuring that individuals that research learning (broadly conceived) who are not yet part of a LS
community had access to the call for proposals, and that the call was written in ways that those individuals were
able to recognize themselves and their work as relevant. This goal required the committee to consider what
terms like #diversity,” “equity,” and #marginalization” mean as well as what they mean in relation to ISLS and
the LS specifically. This goal also required that reviewers of the proposals had expansive epistemologies such
that novel theoretical and/or methodological frameworks were recognized and valued. Thus, in this presentation,
we will describe the successes and discoveries we experienced, within the first year of the Emerging Scholars
Program, while working towards the goal of diversifying ISLS!s membership and epistemologies.
Translating Across Disciplines: Urban/Community Planning & Learning
Sciences
José W. Meléndez, Joshua Radinsky, and Katie Headrick Taylor
In recent years, there has been a good deal of interest in building a bridge between planning research and work
in the field of LS, which has robust theoretical and methodological tools for studying learning (e. g. Meléndez &
Parker 2018; Radinsky, et al., 2017; Taylor, 2017). This is exciting, given how learning is at the core of many
urban planning processes. The list of topics that citizens have to learn about when engaging in community
development or the local knowledge that those in charge learn about by engaging with communities is endless.
Nevertheless, planning as a field is always wrestling with how to attend to what the disciplines refers to as
social learning (Muro & Jeffrey, 2008) in a variety of contexts, especially in relation to issues of power, access,
and social justice. Through this work, we proposed that sociocultural learning theories from the LS can help
researchers align behavioral changes with cognitive learning, a challenge identified frequently in the social
learning planning literature. Additionally, learning scientists have a long history of using design-based research
methods to create, test, and refine tools for use in real-world settings that promote learning, and to study the
learning that results. More recently, the growing body of Learning Sciences work being conducted in urban and
community planning contexts (e.g., Melendez 2021; Meléndez & Martinez-Cosio, 2021; Taylor, 2020) suggests
a valuable cross-pollination of concepts and methods that can expand our understanding of how people learn
with tools, and the kinds of social learning processes that emerge in community development work.
The support provided by the ISLS Grant for Regional and Affinity Outreach & Engagement Promoting
the Learning Sciences was instrumental in bringing learning scientists and urban/community planners together
for the 2019 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP); the leading urban and community planning
conference. The funds from this initiative went to support speakers for two pre-organized sessions, in addition
to a culminating roundtable to discuss future opportunities for generative collaboration across disciplines.
Without a doubt, the learning scientists who were asked to present papers: Drs. Joshua Radinsky, Susan Jurow,
and Katie. H. Taylor would not have attended ACSP without the financial support made possible by this grant
and the organization that placed their work in conversation with efforts underway in the planning field.
Additionally, the planning scholars who also presented: Drs. Camille Barchers, Daniel Milz, and Moira Zellner
were able to place their understanding of learning in planning contexts in direct conversations with learning
scientists. Dr. Maria Martinez-Cosio was the discussant for both sessions, which provided a unique opportunity
to support the engagement of cross-disciplinary dialogue. A rare collaborative effort to translate across
disciplines in disciplinary specific conferences. ISLS, through this initiative took a step towards breaking down
silos that often prevent the useful applications of theories, concepts, tools, and ideas across fields.
Expanding views of ‘research in science learning as an inclusive approach to
different ‘knowledges'
Jasmine Y. Ma, Emilia A. Nhalevilo, Ananda Marin, Sarah C. Radke, Marit Dewhurst, Rishi Krishnamoorthy,
and Arundhati Velamur
Globally, education research, including science education and the LS, has developed momentum in grappling
with diverse epistemologies for science learning—beyond those of dominant, Western communities—honoring
Indigenous ways of knowing that are relevant to the content of school science learning (e.g., Marin & Bang,
2018; Nhalevilo, 2013). Broadly, Indigenous ways of knowing are similar in that they are rooted in an ontology
that desettles the more dominant nature-culture dichotomy; but the ways in which this is emergent differs widely
across the globe—often because of different sociocultural, political and historical contexts. Work in the

Learning Sciences has demonstrated the value of alternative epistemologies for equitable and sustainable
futures; However, this scholarship has primarily been based in the US, and with indigenous framings grounded
in the Americas. Therefore, it is imperative that US-based research consider the diversity of non-dominant ways
of knowing in science classrooms to ensure our developing scholarship and equitable school practices grow
beyond US-centric notions, but are connected globally.
In this participatory research study, education researchers, science teacher educators, and science
teachers from the US and Mozambique collaboratively develop shared understandings to enhance science
teachers’ and science education researchers’ perceptions on the diverse kinds of knowledges under different
epistemologies, supporting a culturally inclusive science education. We plan a four-day workshop with pre- and
in-service science teachers in science education and science education researchers from Mozambique, and LS
researchers. During the workshop, led by program organizers, participants will share examples of local/
indigenous knowledge related to science content. LS researchers will share ongoing work and findings from
related scholarship in LS. Themes will be discussed, and areas of synergy (including overlapping interests in
alternative ways of knowing, doing, and learning science), and continuing issues for inquiry will be developed
and presented by the participants. Initial research questions, to be re-negotiated and refined with all participants,
ask: 1) How might researchers and science educators bring together diverse Indigenous science knowledges; and
2) How can diverse Indigenous science knowledges inform K12 science lessons? Activities also include a post-
workshop program: organizers of the workshop will conduct a survey with participants to evaluate the impact of
the activity. Researchers and participants will have the opportunity to share, explore, and compare Indigenous
science concepts and epistemologies, and collaboratively design lessons for K12 classroom settings. This
project will contribute to education that supports the cultural diversity of today’s science classes, and theories of
science learning grounded across global contexts. In addition, the workshop will lead to future work building
transnational connections with Indigenous scholars globally, towards constructing curricula that value
marginalized students' ways of knowing. Currently the project team is designing the workshop, with a plan to
conduct it in May of 2022.
Soch: Expanding Indian and Indian Diasporic Ways of Thinking in the Learning
Sciences
Deborah Dutta, Gayithri Jayathirtha, Vishesh Kumar, and Suraj Uttamchandani
We came to this project as students struggling with the tension between the settings in which LS research has
taken place—mostly western settings—and the non-western frames that have colored our experiences in family,
school, and day-to-day life. Coming to this tension as a nascent collective of Learning Scientists with diverse
Indian (par/desi) identities (Bhattacharya, 2019; Rodricks, 2022), we approached the ISLS Affinity & Outreach
Grant with the goal of surfacing and centering perspectives and work by Indian researchers and educators,
especially about issues grounded in Indian peoples and contexts. To do so, we organized interviews spanning a
breadth of people and work, and are in the process of editing and uploading them on a central website. We
conducted 17 interviews with a variety of researchers and practitioners across India. The engagement of the
interviewees looked across topics such as working with Indigenous Adivasi communities and education, caste
oppression and education, technology and STEM learning in India, and critical disability studies in India, just to
name a few. Our aim is for the interviews to be a starting point to foreground nuances within #non-Western”
contexts, and different matters of inequity, justice, and education aimed at combating the western-centered ways
of thinking about learning that dominate our field.
During this project, we repeatedly contended with what it means to be broad and expansive in our
outreach — recognizing the impossibility of being exhaustive, while working hard to expand our own
boundaries, awareness, and managing recruitment and interviewing amidst the ongoing global pandemic that
played a heartbreakingly critical role in its differential impact across countries, communities, and peoples.
Importantly, we realized that there was no way to $represent’ the complex and diverse peoples that comprise
(historical and contemporary) India and the Indian Diaspora through interviews with members of named cultural
groups as representatives of the complex issues facing those groups (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003). Instead, our
focus shifted as we oriented to the interviews as dialogical, story-telling, and inherently incomplete—a catalyst
for expanding our ways of thinking rather than as an exhaustive museum for display only. Therefore, we crafted
and recrafted our interview questions, moving from an investigative approach that began to feel extractive, to
instead cultivating a generative interaction that was interesting, productive, and fun for both us and (hopefully)
for our participants. We are currently documenting the journey of our process in further depth to share on our
website as well.
This project resulted in a number of crucial #findings” and reflections. First, it has expanded the
network of connections among LS and related scholars and practitioners in India and with Indian frames.

Substantively, the interviews individually and in aggregate surfaced deeper insights and ways of looking at
commonly discussed phenomena in the LS as they take different shapes in different contexts – most often
around gender, and class, the roles of schools, discipline and conduct; and illuminating issues like casteism
which play strong roles in India but are also an under-discussed and prevalent force across the world. Third, we
helped make explicit the implications and assumptions underlying particular pedagogies, especially in ways they
relate to social identities, livelihood aspirations, cultural practices and environmental justice. Finally, we
ourselves grew significantly as learning scientists and as people through the doing of this project, complexifying
and shaping the relationships we see among our culture(s), our field, and our work.
The eclectic range of the interviews hardly capture the complex and varied dimensions of learning and
equity related issues in India. However, to assume anything else would be a sign of hubris. Our project was
meant to acknowledge and emphasize the need to move beyond Western contexts, and deficit-oriented theories
in the LS. Our effort is an invitation to other LS scholars and researchers from related disciplines to develop
new methodologies, theories and perspectives to enrich the field based on multiple ways of knowing, being and
becoming. What can the field of LS become by embracing plural epistemologies and critical dialogues across
contexts? We cannot wait to continue exploring the possibilities.
New pathways to bidirectionally broaden the international community of
learning scientists
Raquel Coelho, Paulo Blikstein, Livia Macedo, Fabio Campos, Cassia Fernandez, Tatiana Hochgreb, Renato
Russo, Adelmo Eloy
Over the last century, Brazil has made consistent contributions to education research: It is the homeland of Paulo
Freire (1970/2002), Ubiratan D’Ambrosio (1985) and Terezinha Nunes (1993), three of the most significant
education scholars of all time, and precursors to influential theories, pedagogical frameworks (e.g., Critical
Pedagogy, Ethnomathematics, Culturally-Relevant Pedagogies) and methods (e.g., Participatory Action
Research). Nevertheless, Brazil still has minimal participation in Learning Sciences. Paper submissions and
attendance of Brazilian scholars are low or non-existent, and the country does not offer any graduate programs
in LS. The research landscape in Brazil resembles that of the US prior to the 1990s (Pea, 2016): Scholarship is
segregated into departments of education, psychology, sociology, and computer sciences. Research in Brazil
cannot thus benefit from a significant innovation brought about by LS: The recognition that the study of human
learning requires a combination of multiple perspectives and that single disciplines are not enough. At the same
time, the LS community does not benefit from the extensive Brazilian scholarship on equity and critical
pedagogy, and even references to Freire are restricted to a single publication.
The Brazilian Affiliate Group of the ISLS was born out of our collective desire to address these issues,
at the same time expanding the representation of Brazil in the ISLS and accelerating the establishment of a
Brazilian Learning Sciences community. Brazilian scholars may benefit from the theoretical frameworks and
methodological innovations of the Learning Sciences, and the Brazilian community may bring new perspectives
that can further our understanding of the situated nature of learning in formal and informal education. We are
committed to not merely importing the predominantly European/North-American Learning Science frames of
reference to Brazil but rather to making learning theorists and empiricists from South America visible to the
international LS community.
One of our first initiatives has been to organize a Learning Sciences Winter School for graduate
students and young scholars. The first was held virtually in 2021 over four days, with 45 participants, 25
speakers, and ten organizers. In these workshops, participants brought ideas and/or “drafts” of articles that were
collectively discussed and improved by our newborn community. We then continued to assist a number of
school participant-authors in revising their papers for submission to the 2022 ISLS Annual Meeting.
This experience is, for us, also an investigation into building bridges between academic communities,
overcoming enormous obstacles such as funding, culture, academic imperialism, and language. It is also an
experience in exposing to the ISLS community the enormity of the task of making the Society truly, and
systemically, international, beyond tokenization, mere representation, and the insidious colonial makings of
academia. If the Society wants to embrace a robust agenda of equity and justice, we need to move beyond US
and European authors, lenses, and references and put financial and human resources into our expansion to other
regions. Our work with the Winter School has shown that the burden of bringing new communities to the LS is
enormous and often falls on the shoulders of a small number of international researchers that are, themselves,
also trying to overcome obstacles as immigrant scholars. This self-perpetuating state of affairs can only change
through consequential conversations and praxis within the ISLS, to which we hope to bring new insights.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all ISLS subcommittees and the ISLS Board for their reviews and feedback. This
symposium is also partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Programme
Interaktive Systeme in virtuellen und realen Räumen – Innovative Technologien für die digitale Gesellschaft
(Project MITHOS, grant agreement 16SV8687).