Review of Reframing Learning as World- Making: Dialogic Practices and the Politics of Digitalization, by Ernst Schraube

Abstract

In the digital age, shifting technological and communicative landscapes have raised urgent questions about the nature and purpose of learning. In Digitalization and Learning as a Worlding Practice: Why Dialogue Matters, Ernst Schraube reconceptualizes learning as a dialogic and world-making process, moving beyond traditional models of knowledge acquisition. Drawing from Critical Psychology and the Social Psychology of Technology, Schraube develops a subject- and world-centered psychological framework that foregrounds the relational, affective, and political dimensions of digital learning. Central to this framework is the concept of tentacular learning, a collective, entangled form of meaning-making rooted in dialogue, which is situated alongside processes of attention (Ingold, 2018), resonance (Rosa, 2019), and affinitive self-organization (Holzkamp, 1993). The book also interrogates the politics of digitalization, analyzing how technological systems both open possibilities and impose constraints within what Schraube terms “worlding practices.” This review critically engages with Schraube’s contributions through theoretical, empirical, and practical lenses, highlighting how his work challenges dominant instrumentalist narratives and offers a compelling reimagining of learning in digitally mediated contexts. The review also situates Schraube’s work within broader sociotechnical debates, including the shaping of digital subjectivity, public knowledge, and affective relations in platform societies.