Beyond the pandemic: Shaping of futures in (even more?) diverse educational settings - Critical discussion of contributions of invited symposium SIG 21

Looking at SIG 21’s mission statement, the diversity of learning and education (which is / was ?) a granted element in educational research, seems to hail from a post/past century, where not everyone was doing learningonline, remotely via the same tools and devices (i.e. zoom, etc.) Therefore, we wonder ifthe diversity still can be looked at in similar ways, and if so, which other ways of looking at the « new normal » should be developed, both from a practical, empirical research point of view, but also from a theoretical and epistemic perspective, underlying new research (or research into the new normal).Following this first line of thought, which questions could determine future research into education, educational settings and learning as such? This seems of particular interest, as the current ways of looking into education are heavily biased by concerns of technological infrastructure, investment and structural fitness (i.e., teachers as appexperts, networks, online setups, disregarding actual learners). Moreover, other ways of looking into formerly accepted « groups » (i.e., gender, age, background) seem to fall apart and disintegrate, making the issue of heterogeneity even more challenging to grapple with. Finally, when looking at the landscape of educational contexts and their societal anchorage at large (i.e., learning settings, formal/informal settings, mobility, development of professionals …) one aspect seems of particular interest: Is there learning in and from the actual situation ? How sustainable are the developments? Which perspectives can be drawn beyond the short term?