ABSTRACT
Where learning takes place, who is learning, and what is to be learned is increasingly diverse, and to some extent, unpredictable in contemporary societies. Research designs that implicitly predefine the who, what, and where of learning easily overlook essential hybridizations in open-ended learning processes in and across contexts, resulting in but a partial understanding of learning. This chapter proposes adopting a person-centred perspective and conceptualizing learning as potentially multicontextual and multidirectional as a way forward. Such a perspective requires an alternative methodological approach: relational research designs that are responsive to individual learners and unpack learning, wherever and whenever it manifests, while acknowledging that researchers themselves are part of that design. To provide an example, we report a mixed-method study that explores children’s dis/continuities in positioning towards, understanding of, and engagement with science in a science summer program. The discussion highlights the nuanced understandings of learning that can be revealed in responsive relational research and urges the field to be accountable for the inherently partial understandings of learning being generated.
