Aim and Scope
Learning Communities — International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts is an international, interdisciplinary scholarly journal dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of learning as it occurs within diverse social, cultural, educational, institutional, professional, and community contexts. The journal provides a forum for researchers, educators, practitioners, community members, and policy scholars to examine how learning is shaped by relationships, identities, cultures, places, institutions, technologies, policies, and wider social conditions.
The journal is particularly interested in the social and cultural dimensions of learning and in research that recognizes learning as a situated and relational process rather than an activity occurring independently of its social environment. It welcomes scholarship from Australia and internationally and encourages contributions that engage with culturally, linguistically, geographically, and socially diverse communities.
Aims
The journal aims to promote high-quality scholarship that develops theoretical, empirical, methodological, and practical understandings of learning in social contexts. It seeks to create an inclusive intellectual space in which different forms of knowledge, experience, research practice, and educational inquiry can contribute to contemporary debates about learning and society.
In particular, the journal aims to:
- Advance understanding of how learning is influenced by social, cultural, historical, political, economic, institutional, and geographical contexts.
- Promote interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research concerning learning, education, communities, and social participation.
- Encourage research that connects educational theory with practice, lived experience, community knowledge, and policy.
- Support scholarship examining learning across formal, informal, non-formal, professional, workplace, family, digital, and community environments.
- Provide space for culturally responsive, community-engaged, participatory, collaborative, and context-sensitive approaches to research.
- Encourage critical examination of inequality, inclusion, participation, identity, belonging, access, power, and social justice in relation to learning.
- Promote dialogue between researchers, educators, practitioners, communities, policy makers, and other stakeholders concerned with learning and social change.
- Strengthen international and cross-cultural scholarship by bringing together research from diverse geographical, cultural, and educational settings.
- Support innovative theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical approaches that contribute to a deeper understanding of learning in changing social contexts.
Scope
Learning Communities — International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts welcomes original research, theoretical and conceptual scholarship, qualitative and quantitative studies, mixed-methods research, critical reviews, case studies, methodological contributions, policy analyses, and practice-based or community-engaged research.
The journal's scope includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:
- Learning in social and cultural contexts
- Community-based and community-engaged learning
- Learning communities and communities of practice
- Formal, informal, and non-formal education
- Early childhood, school, vocational, higher, adult, and lifelong learning
- Teacher education and professional learning
- Workplace learning and professional development
- Indigenous education, knowledge, pedagogies, and research
- First Nations and culturally grounded approaches to learning
- Decolonising education and knowledge practices
- Cultural and linguistic diversity in education
- Multilingualism, language, literacy, and learning
- Identity, belonging, participation, and learner agency
- Inclusive education and educational equity
- Social justice, marginalization, and educational opportunity
- Rural, regional, remote, and geographically dispersed education
- Education in culturally diverse and underserved communities
- Migration, mobility, displacement, and learning
- Family, intergenerational, and community learning
- Youth, childhood, and learning in social environments
- Gender, diversity, and education
- Educational policy and social policy
- Curriculum, pedagogy, and educational practice
- Student engagement, participation, and educational experience
- Higher education participation and transitions
- Educational leadership and institutional change
- Learning, wellbeing, and social relationships
- Digital learning and technology-mediated social interaction
- Online, blended, flexible, and distributed learning environments
- Digital inclusion, access, and participation
- Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies in social and educational contexts
- Media, multimodality, and contemporary literacy practices
- Environmental, ecological, and place-based learning
- Sustainability education and community responses to environmental change
- Health, wellbeing, and community education
- Arts, creative practice, narrative, and learning
- Social networks and collaborative knowledge creation
- Participatory and action research
- Community-based participatory research
- Narrative, ethnographic, and culturally responsive research methodologies
- Knowledge systems, knowledge sharing, and knowledge co-production
- Educational innovation and socially responsive pedagogies
- Learning, citizenship, democracy, and civic participation
- Globalization and changing contexts of education and learning
Learning in Diverse Social Contexts
The journal recognizes that learning is influenced by the environments, relationships, histories, languages, cultures, identities, and institutions in which people participate. It therefore encourages research that pays careful attention to context and avoids treating educational experiences as detached from the social realities in which they occur.
Particular interest is given to studies that explore how different communities create, negotiate, transmit, contest, and transform knowledge and how educational practices interact with local experience and broader social structures.
Community and Collaborative Knowledge
The journal welcomes scholarship in which communities are understood not merely as research settings but as participants in the creation and interpretation of knowledge. Research involving collaboration, co-design, participatory inquiry, knowledge co-production, community partnerships, and reciprocal engagement is particularly relevant to the journal's interdisciplinary orientation.
Contributions may examine the relationships between academic knowledge, professional knowledge, community knowledge, lived experience, local knowledge, and other ways of knowing.
Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
The journal encourages research examining the role of culture and language in shaping educational participation, knowledge, identity, communication, and learning. Contributions addressing multilingual, multicultural, intercultural, Indigenous, migrant, and culturally diverse contexts are welcomed.
Studies may investigate both the opportunities created by diversity and the structural, institutional, linguistic, or cultural barriers that influence access to learning and participation.
Indigenous and First Nations Scholarship
The journal welcomes ethically conducted scholarship concerning Indigenous and First Nations peoples, knowledges, educational experiences, research methods, languages, communities, and ways of knowing.
Such research should demonstrate appropriate cultural respect, ethical engagement, contextual understanding, and recognition of community knowledge and authority. The journal particularly encourages research approaches that promote meaningful participation, reciprocity, collaboration, and responsible representation.
Learning, Equity, and Social Justice
The journal welcomes critical scholarship examining how social structures, educational systems, policies, institutions, and practices may expand or restrict opportunities for learning.
Relevant research may address socioeconomic inequality, disability, gender, cultural or linguistic difference, geographic isolation, migration, social exclusion, discrimination, access to education, participation, educational transitions, and other factors influencing equitable learning opportunities.
Technology and Changing Learning Environments
Research examining digital technologies, online learning, artificial intelligence, digital participation, educational platforms, social media, multimodal learning, and other emerging technologies is within the journal's scope where the work meaningfully examines their relationship with learning and social context.
The journal particularly welcomes studies that move beyond descriptions of technology and critically examine how technologies reshape relationships, participation, access, pedagogy, knowledge production, identity, inclusion, and educational practice.
Interdisciplinary Scholarship
The journal welcomes contributions from education and related fields including, but not limited to, sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics, cultural studies, Indigenous studies, social policy, communication, human geography, community development, health, technology studies, organizational studies, and other disciplines concerned with learning and social life.
Interdisciplinary research is particularly encouraged where integration across disciplines provides a stronger understanding of complex educational and social phenomena.
International and Local Perspectives
Although the journal has a strong history of engagement with Australian, regional, remote, and Indigenous contexts, its scope is international. Submissions from all countries and regions are welcomed.
Local and context-specific studies are particularly valuable where they provide insights that deepen understanding of learning, communities, social relations, educational practice, or broader theoretical and policy questions.
Methodological Diversity
The journal does not privilege a single methodological tradition. It welcomes qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, participatory, ethnographic, narrative, case-study, action-research, experimental, observational, longitudinal, comparative, theoretical, and other academically appropriate approaches.
Methodological choices should be clearly justified, ethically appropriate, and suitable for addressing the questions or problems examined in the manuscript.
Special Issues
The journal may publish special issues or thematic collections addressing significant and emerging topics relevant to learning in social contexts. Such collections may bring together interdisciplinary, international, community-based, or theoretically connected contributions around a particular theme.
Intended Readership
The journal is intended for an international readership that includes researchers, academics, educators, teachers, students, community researchers, educational leaders, policy makers, practitioners, professionals, and organizations interested in the relationships between learning and social context.
What the Journal Seeks in a Submission
Manuscripts should demonstrate a clear scholarly purpose, appropriate engagement with relevant literature, methodological or conceptual rigor, ethical integrity, and a meaningful contribution to understanding learning in its social context.
The journal particularly values work that is contextually grounded, critically informed, theoretically or empirically meaningful, and capable of contributing to conversations across disciplinary, cultural, institutional, and geographical boundaries.
Commitment to Inclusive Scholarship
Learning Communities — International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts seeks to support inclusive and internationally relevant scholarly communication. Through its broad interdisciplinary scope, the journal provides a platform for diverse perspectives and forms of inquiry that deepen understanding of how people learn, participate, create knowledge, and build communities across changing social contexts.
