Theme 4: Education and learning

This theme turns to pedagogical design and practice. It synthesizes work on online/digital learning, media/digital/transcultural literacies, and L2/FL pedagogy and design, drawing implications for assessment, curriculum, and teacher development; an emerging strand addresses social-emotional learning and well-being alongside critical literacies. We also synthesize design and delivery considerations that influence engagement and learning across culturally diverse cohorts.

While neither our 2004 review (Macfadyen et al., 2004) nor our current survey of literature were focussed on culture and communication in online learning contexts, it is perhaps not surprising that a substantial portion of literature in this field has examined activity online in educational contexts. The educational sector might be considered an early adopter when it comes to online intercultural activity–a phenomenon that is only increasing as demand for digital learning booms, platforms become more sophisticated, and demand for online learning boomed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic (Quality Matters, 2023; Wadhwani, 2023). Academic contexts are also a realm to which researchers have reasonably straightforward access, for purposes of observation and investigation.

Older work regarding culture and communication in online learning environments revealed several key insights and challenges. Early research highlighted the challenges people from different cultural backgrounds face when communicating online, and how special challenges of intercultural communication in online environments affected online teaching and learning. Some studies explored how cultural factors affected the design of digital learning environments, aiming to identify elements that facilitated more successful intercultural communication. Others drew on observations of group discussions in online learning environments to theorize about computer-mediated communications could support community development and communication.

In 2025, we have again discovered that a significant proportion (110 papers, or 68%) of works we identified address learning or personal development in some way, whether in formal or informal digital contexts.