Media-Cultural Constructivism

Education and 4E Cognition:

Some Challenges at the Crossroads
of Learning and Bildung
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH CONCEPTS IN Media-Cultural Constructivism

Theo Hug • University of Innsbruck, Austria • theo.hug/at/uibk.ac.at

> Context • References to education in the 21st century often follow popular framings of education focusing on “skill-
ing” and self-regulated learning without reflecting education as a key concept in educational research. Inter- and trans-
disciplinary efforts at the seams of 4E cognition and educational research can offer mutual benefits and enhanced
perspectives for conceptualizing and designing educational arrangements open to the future. > Problem • Educa-
tion and educational research are contested fields. Depending on disciplinary backgrounds and entanglements of
educational research and policy, different operative fictions of, for example, optimization, emancipation, calculable
output, or freedom of personality development play a role. I highlight some challenges and often neglected contexts
at the crossroads of learning and education as Bildung. > Method • I summarize some historical background regarding
education, educationability (Bildsamkeit) and the relevance of educationalization formulas. Furthermore, I consider a
number of issues related to learnification, literacification, datafication and the impact of the global education industry.
A critical analysis shows that some challenges have been undervalued in the discourses at the crossroads of education
and 4E cognition, so far. > Results • As for the future of 4E cognition research, perspectives are not necessarily limited
to quantitative measurement, calculability, formalization and computational models of cognition. Further clarification
should include relations of measurable and non-measurable dimensions of education as well as humanist and post-
humanist assumptions of learning subjects. > Implications • Insights are beneficial for educational researchers and
specialists from different disciplines who want to overcome reductionist or lopsided perspectives regarding the future
of education. > Constructivist content • 4E cognition considering extracranial processes is compatible with radical
constructivism and relevant to educational research and pedagogical practice. However, considering the relevance
of entanglements of micro-, meso – and macro-levels in education, the increasing impact of the global education
industry and contemporary challenges of various critical ecologies, enhanced perspectives of constructivism that are
informed by Siegfried J. Schmidt’s media-cultural constructivism and Kersten Reich’s interactive constructivism pro-
vide broader prospects for conceptualizing and designing education in the 21st century. > Key words • 4E cognition,
constructivism, datafication, digital media ecologies, education, global education industry, learnification, literacifica-
tion, medialization, mediatization.

158

Introduction
« 1 »  There is no shortage of claims con-
cerning education in the 21st century. The
scope of suggestions for comprehensive ori-
entation refers to a variety of themes includ-
ing dealing with complexity, uncertainty,
inclusion, openness, ecology, inequality,
sustainability, and employability, as well as
gender, racial, ethnic and class differences
in a fast-changing world. The spectrum of
proposed sufficient strategies ranges from
revisiting well-known ideas of learning
to learn, critical thinking, creative think-
ing and ecological thinking to algorithmic
thinking, design thinking, digital skills,
futures literacy and the promotion of new
literacies as well as STEM and STEAM in
formal education. The abundance of lit-
erature includes forecasts like the volume
of Brandt (2000), a plethora of influential
policy papers (e.g., Delors 1998; Kodrzycki
2002; Schleicher 2015, 2018), and various
academic contributions (e.g., Carneiro &
Draxler 2008; Chalkiadaki 2018; Schneider
& Saw 2018; Fomunyam 2020; Berry et al.
2021; Hernández-Serrano 2021). In this dis-
course, formats and types of publication are
not always easy to distinguish.
« 2 »  As far as contributions referring to
4E cognition have entered the field of edu-
cation (e.g., Christ et al. 2021; Henley 2021;
Videla, Aguayo & Veloz 2021), new perspec-
tives of thinking about thinking have been
developed. In this context, the 4E refers to
further developments of traditional cogni-
tive science from representational and com-
putational models of cognition towards inte-
grated approaches to cognition considering
extracranial processes, typically referring to
embodied, extended, embedded and enac-
tive cognition. Sometimes, related notions
of “situated,” “distributed,” “interactive,” “af-
fective,” etc. (Başoğlu 2021: 778), as well as
socio-cultural aspects are also debated in
this discourse. In contrast to claims like The
“E” is for everything (Katz & Oblinger 2000),
the contributions in the field of 4E cognition
 Media-Cultural Constructivism
usually meet high standards of theoretical
explanation. However, in-depth 4E cogni-
tion studies that make reference to educa-
tion in the 21st century and reflect educa-
tion as a key concept in educational research
seem to be a desideratum so far.
« 3 »  The purpose of this article is to
point out some desiderata in the 4E cogni-
tion discourse and educational research as
well as differences that conceptualizations
of education can make in designing educa-
tion in and for the 21st century. In doing
so, some forgotten connections, particularly
concerning the global education industry,
and underexamined tendencies of “learni-
fication,” “literacification,” “datafication,”
and “mediatization” as well as metaphorical
ambiguities related to educational ecologies
are discussed. As a result, some shortcom-
ings and options for mutual benefits as well
as enhanced perspectives for conceptualiz-
ing and designing educational arrangements
that are open to the future are pointed out.
Pedagogy and educational
research – Preliminary
notes
« 4 »  Among others, education, learn-
ing and literacy are used as key concepts in
educational research. Moreover, they work
as contested terms at the crossroads of other
academic disciplines, including psychology,
sociology, philosophy, learning sciences,
cognitive sciences, and literary studies. In
addition, they serve as hubs between edu-
cational practices, scientific endeavors, life-
worlds, arts and political activities. Obvious-
ly, there are numerous understandings and
applications of the terms as well as termino-
logical fluctuations and issues of account-
ability and responsibility. Correspondingly,
we are facing changing understandings and
shifting trends from a historical perspective,
too. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s,
terms like socialization, qualification, learn-
ing and competence moved to the center
of the German-speaking educational dis-
courses while pedagogy, pedagogical tact,
or educationability (Bildsamkeit)1 received
increasingly less attention.
1 
| The German term “Bildsamkeit” goes
back to Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841),
Education and 4E Cognition Theo Hug
« 5 »  Changing attention economies
and modes of framing education can be dif-
ferentiated by means of educationalization
formulas (Pädagogisierungsformeln) and
their historical relevance. Hermann Veith
(2003: 183–201) provides an overview of
reproduction problems and educationaliza-
tion formulas for the German-speaking area
that could be supplemented with “digitaliza-
tion of education,” “mediatization of educa-
tion,” “learnification of education,” “digital
skilling,” (Chetty et al. 2018; Dean & Skujins
2021) or “digital education,” in view of the
current societal problems of reproduction
and the technological and media-cultural
transformation processes. Indeed, Veith’s
overview could be augmented in terms of
comparative analyses of reproduction prob-
lems and educational formulas in different
countries and world regions and with regard
to interplays between cultural, medial, tech-
nological and societal dynamics (Schmidt
1994; Rusch 2007) beyond considerations
of societal change. If we explore historic or
contemporary educationalization formulas,
they generally open up new perspectives for
educational research and practice while oth-
er perspectives are put into the background
or concealed. Correspondingly, balancing
holistic and particularistic views is often
who emphasized two aspects that are relevant
for the determination of the study of pedagogy:
§1, “The basic concept of pedagogy is the edu-
cationability [Bildsamkeit] of the student,” and
§2, “Pedagogy as a science depends on practical
philosophy and psychology. The former indicates
the aim of education, the latter the route, means
and obstacles” (Herbart 1841: 1). Elsewhere Her-
bart discusses concepts like “variety of interest”
or “moral strength of character” as fundamental
ideas. In addition, he combines the concepts “edu-
cation” und “teaching” in the compound “educa-
tional teaching” (Herbart 1806). He became well
known not least because he emphasized the need
for a focus on basic concepts that are “native” (that
is, original or endemic to the discipline) in order
to “avoid the risk of being governed by a stranger
as a distant, conquered province” (Herbart 1806:
8). Alternatively, the term “Bildsamkeit” could be
translated with “formability” in allusion to edu-
cation as formation. Since the term is not widely
used and since there is no generally recognized
translation, the reference to the original work is
relevant.
challenging when it comes to the analysis
of wins and losses in the context of a spe-
cific formula and its applications. The ex-
ploration of achievements, potentials, blind
spots, undervalued contexts and forgotten
connections is even more difficult when
different educationalization formulas and
paradigmatic contexts come in, especially
if pars pro toto descriptions and implicit or
explicit claims to power of the interpretation
of key terms (Altenrath, Helbig & Hofhues
2020) play a role.
« 6 »  Regardless of Herbart’s (1806: 8)
hint about “the risk of being governed by a
stranger as a distant, conquered province,”
educational studies and research are widely
conceived as an interdisciplinary field. This
applies not only to Anglo-American con-
structions of the field in contrast to con-
tinental understandings of pedagogy as a
“discipline in its own right” (Biesta 2011:
188), but also to other conceptualizations
in various world regions. The (inter-)dis-
ciplinary status of educational research is
widely characterized by “blurring boundar-
ies” (Glaser & Keiner 2014), though an in-
ternational interest in concepts of education
as Bildung cannot be neglected (see for ex-
ample, Løvlie & Standish 2002; Biesta 2012;
Laros, Fuhr & Taylor 2017; Siljander, Kivelä
& Sutinen 2012). On the one hand, the term
education2 is widely used today but often
only loosely connected to differentiations in
educational research and traditions of un-
derstanding education as Bildung. On the
other hand, education as Bildung can serve
as an interpretative framework enabling 159
critical analysis of discourses and practices
of the development of skills, qualifications,
competences or literacies. As far as the latter
is concerned, the complexity of correspond-
ing interpretations should not be underesti-
mated in view of the diversity of educational
concepts. Education is a contested term not
only at the crossroads of various academic
disciplines, economic interests and educa-
2 |  The term “education,” for instance, may be
translated in German as “Bildung,” “Ausbildung,”
“Bildungswesen,” “Bildungsweg,” “Erziehung”
(upbringing), “Edukation,” “Unterricht,” “Schul-
ung,” “Schulausbildung” (schooling), “Training,”
“Unterweisung” as well as “Bildungswissenschaft”
and “Erziehungswissenschaft,” as academic disci-
plines.
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EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH CONCEPTS IN Media-Cultural Constructivism
160
tional policies. It is also a contested term
within educational research. Apart from
historical meanings in theology and natu-
ral philosophy (Lichtenstein 1971), there is
a wide range of characterizations including
normative and descriptive aspects of educa-
tion, for example, as
ƒ a transcending of human-world rela-
tionships along with ideas of morality,
truth, and beauty
ƒ the individual and collective develop-
ment of capacities for free speech and
democracy
ƒ enabling knowledge building, expertise
and knowing
ƒ a meta-reflexive learning ability and
dealing successfully with cultural diver-
sity and societal restraints
ƒ an individual and collective transgres-
sion of theological, political, historic
and economic deception against the
background of claims of enlightenment
ƒ the self-overcoming of patterns of self –
and world-interpretations
ƒ the self-reflexive enhancement of scopes
for designing self – and world-relations
ƒ the self-construction of a human being
in interaction with the world, other hu-
mans and non-human actors
ƒ the self-determined diversification of
difference management and personal
development
ƒ an activity of educational institutions.3
« 7 »  An often-quoted example for
strengthening holistic perspectives on up-
bringing, human maturation and Bildung
in contrast to focuses on skill development
and instruction is Klaus Mollenhauer’s
(2014) book, Forgotten Connections: On
Culture and Upbringing. His outline of “a
general study of Bildung and upbringing”
(Mollenhauer 2014: 9; italics in original) is
situated at the crossroads of philosophy and
education, humanities (Geisteswissenschaft)
and social sciences, and pedagogical ten-
sions between cultural heritage and future
prospects. The main chapters are dealing
with educational issues that are highlighted
with the key terms, presentation, represen-
3 |  For a collection of definitions and char-
acterizations in the German-speaking world, see
Lederer (2015), for a comprehensive monograph
dealing with languages of Bildung, see Tenorth
(2020).
tation, educationability (Bildsamkeit) and
self-activity (Selbsttätigkeit). Oscillating
between humanistic European pedagogy
and modern educational research oriented
towards social sciences, he was not at ease
with the ongoing scientification, abstract
terminology and shifts of attention towards
institutional dynamics and processes of in-
teraction, socialization and competence de-
velopment. His concern for wider contexts
and normative issues regarding social jus-
tice, emancipation and relations of genera-
tions corresponded to a discomfort in view
of tendencies of reductionism and forgotten
connections. The latter refer to the pedagog-
ical usage of cultural sources (texts, pictures,
etc.), in particular, as well as to biographi-
cal, socio-cultural and historical reflections.
In an “educational” world of constantly op-
timized technologies for the competitive
development of skills and competencies,
function comes before emancipation like re-
mote-controlled and self-organized learning
come before self-determined (selbstbestim-
mt) learning. Similarly, measurability comes
before educational relevance, quality as-
surance comes before quality of living, and
evaluation comes before articulation of life
experiences and self-reflection in this world.
Even though these and other juxtapositions
should not be misunderstood as based on
strictly mutually exclusive categories, it is
obvious that respective accentuations and
preferences correspond to different educa-
tional ecologies and atmospheres.
« 8 »  As far as 4E cognition and educa-
tion are concerned, a systematic review of
historical, contemporary and future aspects
of the multifaceted relationship of these
fields is not available. Characteristically, The
Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition (Newen,
De Bruin & Gallagher 2018) does not offer
a chapter or significant assertions regarding
intersections of 4E cognition and education.
Otherwise, there are references to educa-
tion in related discourses, for example, with
regard to mathematics education – “bases
of enactivism provide a rich and powerful
explanatory theory for learning and being”
(Ernest 2009: 42) – and, more recently, to
STEM and STEAM education (Pande 2021;
Videla, Aguayo & Veloz 2021). As for their
understanding of education, Ronnie Videla,
Claudio Aguayo and Tomas Veloz explain it
as follows:
“ The enactive and ecological psychology ap-
proach to education puts attention on the role of
the teacher, learning context and socio-cultural
environment in shaping lived learning experi-
ences. The approach describes education as a pro-
cess of embodied cognitive assemblage of guided
”
perception and action. (Videla, Aguayo & Ve-
loz 2021: 1)
While STEM and STEAM education con-
stitute sub-areas of education, which – like
all sub-areas of education – may include
general claims of education, the question re-
mains of how relations of 4E approaches and
traditional educational approaches can be
clarified in order to further interdisciplinary
discourses and to foster educational devel-
opments open to the future. This task should
not be underestimated for several reasons:
Firstly, the key terms of 4E have been dis-
cussed throughout pedagogical histories.
From Confucius’s notions on education and
learning to Nezahualcóyotl’s core subjects
“Ixtlamachilitztli” and “Yolmelahualiztli,”4
from Spartan modes of education to educa-
tion in the spirit of Pestalozzi connecting
head, heart and hand, from Plato’s different
modes of education of workers and artisans,
of guardians and soldiers, and of rulers, to
the Humboldtian model of higher educa-
tion and to intercultural, transnational,
postmodern and postcolonial concepts of
education, in substance the 4Es played a role
in manifold ways avant la lettre. This applies
to the term “embodied” in the sense of rela-
tions of cognitive and bodily phenomena; to
extended in the sense of extending human
thinking, learning and knowing by means
of interactions with other humans, tools,
and environments; to enactive in the sense
of learning by doing and active engagement
with others and environments; and to em-
bedded in the sense of connections between
learning and cognition of individuals with
social, cultural, economic, spatial, and situ-
ational contexts. In order to further inter-
disciplinary discourses and to foster educa-
4 |  Nezahualcóyotl (1402–1472) was a ruler,
warrior, poet and philosopher in the pre-Co-
lumbian city-state Texcoco. In his educational
concept, the first subject, Ixtlamachilitztli, refers
to “giving wisdom to the faces” and the second
subject, Yolmelahualiztli, refers to “lifting up the
hearts” (Stöger 2018: 39).
 Media-Cultural Constructivism
tional developments open to the future, 4E
cognition research can benefit from taking
notice of historical modes of dealing with
these phenomena in pedagogical traditions,
and educational research can benefit from
contemporary 4E cognition research as re-
gards empirical settings that aim at bringing
together particularistic and holistic per-
spectives. Secondly, the task should not be
undervalued because of terminological and
conceptual issues. On the one hand, motifs
of transformational learning in the field of
enacting education sometimes tie in with
German-speaking educational traditions
(Stapleton 2021: 888); on the other hand,
commonalities and differences still need
to be clarified here with reference to avail-
able research findings (Laros, Fuhr & Taylor
2017; Siljander, Kivelä & Sutinen 2012). It
may apply to many educational institutions
even on a global scale that “Cartesian dual-
ism is still pervasive throughout school set-
tings” (Macrine & Fugate 2022: 15). How-
ever, the purposes of education and spaces
for education as ends in themselves are to
be considered in embodied learning settings
that refer to non-dualist conceptualizations,
too. Moreover, terminological and concep-
tual issues come into play here also in view
of hopes for neuroscientific insights. For one
thing, the “link between neuroscience and
education can create viable embodied ap-
plications for education” (Macrine & Fugate
2022: 20). Then again, the compatibility and
comparability of educational and neurosci-
entific languages should not be taken for
granted (Janich 2009).
« 9 »  In their introduction to a special
issue “embodied cognition and education”
of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sci-
ences, Evi Agostini and Denis Francesconi
(2021: 417) ask if embodied cognition (EC)
can “constitute a new theoretical framework
for educational science and practice.” They
pose a series of questions referring to the rel-
evance of 4E cognition to educational prac-
tice, innovative options in view of tradition-
al educational approaches, consequences for
educational organizations and policies, and
a critical appraisal of EC from educational
viewpoints (ibid). Since the articles of their
special issue mostly “focused on the role of
lived body in educational practice” (ibid)
and several of the initial questions have not
been addressed by the authors, a number
Education and 4E Cognition Theo Hug
of issues including (meta)theoretical and
institutional questions remain subject to
future research. In this target article, I want
to highlight some challenges that have been
undervalued in discourses at the crossroads
of education and 4E cognition.
Learnification,
literacification, datafication
and mediatization
« 10 »  First of all, there are several chal-
lenges that can be trenchantly expressed
with the terms learnification, literacifica-
tion, datafication and mediatization. They
all mark a need for conceptual clarifica-
tions and ethical decisions. For example, it
is commonly agreed that learning is part of
education. However, along with discourses
about e-learning and rhetorics of ICT in
education, a new language of learning has
become very influential in educational
contexts (Haugsbakk & Nordkvelle 2007).
Along with this shift, there are tendencies of
reductionism regarding learning discourses
and their relation to education as Bildung.
While pedagogical approaches to learning
(Titze 2000; Göhlich, Wulf & Zirfas 2014)
hardly play a role in 4E cognition contexts,
learning has been increasingly used as the
epitome for education, especially with re-
gard to education policy. Along with these
tendencies of “learnification” (Biesta 2010),
we can find shifts concerning pedagogical
responsibilities (Biesta 2011: 190; Friesen
2019) that are questionable in view of con-
cepts of education as Bildung that are pri-
marily based on an ethics of humanization,
self-determination (Selbstbestimmung) and
interactive development of cognitive, bodily
and moral potentials – and not on a primacy
of affirmative qualification in the service of
economic interests, growth ideologies and
techniques for “matching individuals to
existing social and economic roles” (Lange-
mann 1989: 212).
« 11 »  Literacy – in the traditional sense
of being able to read and write – plays a role
in 4E cognition and educational discourses.
Moreover, in both contexts, other subjects
like art, music, mathematics or ecology are
among the research topics. Quite often,
educational aspects of knowing how and
knowing that, acquiring skills, developing
competences or understanding contexts are
labelled as “literacy.” On the one hand, the
traditional concept of literacy has been en-
hanced to include economic, political, and
socio-cultural dimensions. On the other
hand, educational and ethical issues as re-
gards fostering empowerment and diversity,
overcoming patterns of discrimination, and
promoting the ability to deal with uncer-
tainty and risk have become relevant, too.
Altogether, these enhancements concern
both conceptual understandings and appli-
cations. The wider spectrum of understand-
ings of literacy includes notions of cognitive
skills, competence, modes of meaning-mak-
ing or understanding, the ability to deal with
language, numbers, images or digital media,
and being knowledgeable in a specific area
(Hug 2019). Fields of applications range
from historical literacy to futures literacy
and from art literacy to zoological literacy
(ibid.). Challenges for an update of the con-
cept of educationability (Bildsamkeit) and
non-reductionist approaches to problem-
solving lie in conceptual clarifications of
relations of literacy, numeracy, mathemacy,
oracy, visuacy, picturacy, and audability,5 as
well as their relevance for different forms of
knowing and knowledge. Further develop-
ments in 4E cognition could contribute to a
deeper understanding of characteristics and
dynamics of these realms, their relations to
schemata (Hampe & Grady 2005) and pat-
terns that consist “of regularities that appear
through a series of related differences and
similarities” (Hayles 2012: 74). Educational
theory would benefit from these clarifica- 161
tions, especially if an auto-constitutive cycle
of systems of cognition, communication,
media and culture (Schmidt 1994) and di-
5 |  Here, the term “audability” is not used in a
common-sense mode referring to acoustic quali-
ties or properties (Hörsamkeit) or in the sense of a
quasi-synonym for audibility (Hörbarkeit, Verne-
hmbarkeit). In contrast, it refers to various forms
of dealing with acoustic phenomena, to acoustic
abilities, listening skills and sound – or tone-relat-
ed competencies. However, in analogy to relations
of visual competencies and Competencies of Vi-
suals (Ratsch, Stamatescu & Stoellge 2009), inter-
relations and entanglements of acoustic qualities,
for example, of soundscapes, and acoustic abilities
of listening actors would denote a specific branch
of interdisciplinary research.
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dactics of interactive constructivism in edu-
cation (Reich 2007) are considered, too.
« 12 »  The use of emerging technologies
and digital tools in education generally and
in STEAM contexts especially goes hand in
hand with new ways of dealing with digital
data and quantitative dimensions of educa-
tion. The spectrum ranges from imparting
data literacy in view of requirements for the
qualification of data analysts and the devel-
opment of “human resources” to practices
of learning analytics, fostering critical data
literacy (Dander 2014; Selwyn 2015; Gapski
2015), exploring viable options for co-cre-
ation including non-human actors (Cizek
et al. 2019) and clarification of ethical is-
sues for the development of responsible data
practices (Franzke, Muis & Schäfer 2021).
“  On the one hand, (media) education can be
seen as an important countermeasure in raising
people’s awareness, as well as their levels of criti-
cality and reflexivity. In this sense, educational
work within media education corresponds with
the critical analysis of digital capitalism and data-
fication, informing knowledge about contextual
dimensions of big data as well as promoting facili-
tation of critical literacies, self-determination, en-
lightenment regarding the distribution of respon-
sibility, solidarity with underprivileged groups
and personal agency. On the other hand, educa-
tion in many cases extends digital capitalist ide-
ologies (cf. technical solutionism), tech services
and practices to the development and utilization
of human capital. Examples include large tech
companies lobbying for their equipment, cloud-
based services, datafied learning and automated
learning systems in schools or HE, especially in
the context of the emerging global education in-
”
dustry (GEI). (Dander et al. 2021: 2)
« 13 »  Datafication is a good example of
how well-known educational paradoxes like
freedom and coercion, external determina-
tion (heteronomy) and self-determination,
uniformity and diversity are intensified
and entangled with new paradoxes like
algorithmic control and individual flex-
ibility, surveillance and (in)transparency or
didactical openness and predictable learn-
ing outcomes. Since research in the fields of
education and 4E cognition are increasingly
dealing with digital data, big data algorithms
and datafied environments, it is obvious that
there are a number of challenges depending
on basic anthropological, epistemological
and methodological assumptions. If educa-
tion is taken as a form of social engineer-
ing and machine learning as an educational
tool for the training of “data slaves” or the
creation of “human learning machines,”
then issues of data-based value creation and
(semi-)automated decision making will be
treated differently compared to understand-
ings of education as self-determined em-
powerment and “personal self-realization.”6
Similar challenges are related to issues of
scoring (Gapski & Packard 2021), behav-
ioral genetics of education (Kovas, Malykh
& Gaysina 2016; Williamson 2022) and am-
bivalences between respect for privacy and
disclosure of learners’, teachers’ and admin-
istrators’ behavioral, performance, psycho-
logical or genetic profiles.
« 14 »  Like data, media have always
played a role in contexts of education and
cognition. However, recent dynamics of
digitalization and datafication have con-
tributed to an increased awareness of both
potentials and threats. Not least during
the pandemic, many educators noted that
learning environments had become media
environments and that digital media acted
as both enablers of educational processes
and promoters of restraints on education. It
is precisely the tendency of the creation of
procedural, technological and institutional
dependencies (“mediation” as Mittelbarma-
chung), the relevance of “media logics” for
the establishment of structural constraints,
media colonization of lifeworlds and society
and hegemonic shifts in media systems that
can be summarized by the term “mediatiza-
tion.” As far as the role of digitalization for
new quantitative and qualitative character-
istics is emphasized regarding the ways in
which digital media affect lifeworlds as well
as social and cultural change today, some-
times the term “deep mediatization” (Hepp
2020) is used.
6 | Personal self-realization can be under-
stood as “development of personal readiness to
self-development, manifestation of inclinations
and capabilities, which suggest balanced and
harmonious development of different aspects of
a person with application of adequate efforts to
expand personal potential” (Maksimenko & Ser-
diuk 2016: 92).
« 15 »  It makes a difference whether we
recognize media constellations and media
dynamics as inevitable contexts for modes
and latitudes of cognitive activities or we
focus on media as “neutral” technologies of
mediation in the context of learning, edu-
cation and cognition. On the one hand, we
may focus on enhanced or limited scopes
for action and cognitive activities of an
agent in a “mediatized” environment in
contrast to interaction with non-mediated
environments. On the other hand, histori-
cal or systematic assumptions of a non-
mediated “natural” environment can be
taken as “operative fictions” (Schmidt 2006:
4). Assertions of knowledge about such an
environment are facing similar problems to
those related to assertions of the “discovery
of ontological reality” (Glasersfeld 1995:
18). If we accept that the “function of cog-
nition is adaptive” (ibid), questions of co-
evolutionary characteristics, changing me-
dia constellations and “medial pregnancy”
(mediale Prägnanz)7 become important. In
contrast to issues of “mediatization” such as
shifts in power relations and dynamics of
alienation or colonization, “medialization”
can be taken as an umbrella term referring
to the exploration of medial dimensions of
cultural objects and practices, change of
media forms and their relevance to knowl-
edge organization, modes of cognition and
structures of communication and interac-
tion in changing historic media constella-
tions.8
7 |  This term has been coined by Reinhard
Margreiter (2018: 79) in analogy to Cassirer’s
concept of “symbolic pregnancy” (symbolische
Prägnanz). It refers to various medial pregnancies
including mimetic-gestural, oral-auditive, typo-
graphic, telematic or scopic pregnancies, each of
them constituting “a paradigm of world orienta-
tion, a system of several media interacting side by
side, with each other and against each other, dom-
inated by a respective leading medium” (Margre-
iter 2018: 79).
8 |  For a closer examination of the relation
between “mediatization” and “medialization”
considering research results from media studies
and communication studies, see Hug & Leschke
(2021).
 Media-Cultural Constructivism
Global education industry
and digital capitalism
« 16 »  Analyses of industries and mar-
kets as “ordering principles” of education are
not new (Lith 1985). However, along with
recent digitalization programs in education
and especially in view of Covid-19-induced
developments as regards providing techni-
cal equipment for educational institutions,
increased trends towards “digital educa-
tion,” “digital competences” and “digital
skills” can be observed worldwide. Apart
from conceptual problems of attributing
digital features to nontechnical domains
and tendencies towards the reduction of
communicative, pedagogical and didactic
processes to their representation in digital
– technological systems, assumptions of the
extensive availability of processes of learn-
ing and education show characteristics of
“operative fictions” sensu Schmidt (2006),
too. Moreover, in the wake of the pandemic,
bursts in the global education industry and
strong tendencies towards commercializa-
tion and privatization in/of education have
been analyzed (Williamson & Hogan 2020).
While renowned representatives from edu-
cational research are rather ignoring related
problems (Binder & Drerup 2020) or focus-
ing on the criticism of critiques of capital-
ism (Tenorth 2020: 534–544), an interna-
tional discourse concerning developments
of the global education industry (Verger,
Lubienski & Steiner-Khamsi 2016) is going
on and an initiative “Education and Digital
Capitalism”9 was formed, in 2021, in Ger-
many.
« 17 »  Moreover, since Anthony Pic-
ciano’s (1994) analysis of an “education-in-
dustrial complex” and newer studies in this
field (Picciano & Spring 2013; Münch 2018),
assumptions of invariance of education and
cognition seem inappropriate for a number
of reasons. These reasons concern, in partic-
ular, ongoing processes of commodification,
commercialization and monetization of
public education as well as a non-transpar-
ent data economy, path dependencies und
influences of the global education industry
on the distribution of proprietary software
and hardware, educational policies, curri-
9 |  https://bildung-und-digitaler-kapitalis-
mus.de
Education and 4E Cognition Theo Hug
cula development, and not least the design
of educational material.
« 18 »  Regardless of how recent develop-
ments of digital capitalism (Staab 2020) and
the global education industry are assessed,
issues of “digital neofeudalism” (Lange &
Santarius 2018: 129) and democracy and
education (Garrison, Neubert & Reich
2016) are at stake here. Neither educational
research nor academic study of 4E cognition
should ignore these contexts, especially if
they care for ecological validity and alterna-
tives to management of “sustained unsus-
tainability” (Blühdorn et al. 2020) or the cel-
ebration of paradoxes of optimization (Wolf
& Thiersch 2021).
« 19 »  One might argue that even in
contexts of Bildung where education is
conceptualized as an end in itself, motifs of
“optimization” play a role in the sense of the
development of personal strengths, moral
growth and not least (meta)cognitive abili-
ties. If we disregard views of education in a
very broad sense as, for example, life itself
is educating for a moment, then educational
arrangements as well as the design of edu-
cational environments and materials come
into perspective as relevant for all forms of
materialization of educationalization for-
mulas. While, for example, Videla, Aguayo
and Veloz (2021) start from an enactive
approach to STEM and STEAM education
informed by ecological psychology, educa-
tional research often starts from notions of
media ecologies (Meister, Hug & Friesen
2014) or socio-cultural ecology and related
concepts (Rummler 2014). Here, too, it
makes a difference whether we are dealing
with open education resources, open-source
developments and post-digital educational
cultures of sharing, or with digital “black
boxes” considering education mainly as
commodification, measurable output and
profitable investment.
« 20 »  The popularity of the ecology met-
aphor should not hide the way that preferred
metaphorical concepts usually correspond
with different practices and performative
aspects. We should not forget that – aside
from biological paradigms in ecology that
focus on populations or ecosystems – differ-
ent ecological approaches like media ecolo-
gy, information ecology, knowledge ecology,
socio-cultural ecology, communicative ecol-
ogy, political ecology, ecological psychology,
ecological economics or ecologies of affect
may be related to various understandings of
ecology, for example, as environment, social
movement, moral norm, networked rela-
tions or systems theory (Hug 2020). More-
over, critical ecologies like issues of global
warming, environmental justice, increased
energy consumption, climate migration,
data extractivism, or complex entangle-
ments between human and nonhuman ac-
tors have become increasingly important far
beyond academic research interests. All of
these issues are related to normative ques-
tions and educational challenges, and all of
them are challenging analytic assertions and
critical perspectives. In other words, educa-
tion in the 21st century is confronted with
contrasting questions at the crossroads of
critical ecologies and ecologies of criticism
(Beinsteiner et al. 2022).
« 21 »  In the field of tension of (self-)re-
sponsible learners and “respons-able” learn-
ing machines, the clarification of conceptu-
alizations of learning ecosystems and related
practices is crucial, as the following example
shows:
“ XR environments as integrated, adaptable, and
configurable learning ecosystems along a digi-
tal continuum offer unprecedented educational
possibilities for free-choice, self-determined, au-
thentic, and contextual learning experiences.
(Videla, Aguayo & Veloz 2021: 5)
”
« 22 »  Without detailed contextualiza-
tion, the description can be read as an ex-
ample of innovative education as Bildung 163
insofar as self-determined and contextual
learning experiences are explicitly fore-
grounded. On the other hand, if “contex-
tual” is mainly referring to engineered en-
vironments and “self-determined” is used
as a synonym for “self-regulated” then the
description can be read as an example of in-
strumental logics of educational innovation
and digital transformation that are following
suggestions of an industrial path of innova-
tion without any alternative (Mansell 2018).
« 23 »  From a metatheoretical per-
spective, clarification should include rela-
tions of measurable and non-measurable
dimensions of education, formalizable and
non-formalizable aspects of educational
processes, and not least of humanist and
post-humanist assumptions of learning sub-
https://constructivist.info/18/2/158.hug

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH CONCEPTS IN Media-Cultural Constructivism
164
jects (Fuchs 2022). As for the future of 4E
cognition research, there are no compelling
reasons that it
“  will join psychoanalysis, structuralism, func-
tionalism, cybernetics and all those other per-
spectives on the mind that monopolized the
correct answers right up to the point where they
”
didn’t. (Carney 2020: 87)
« 24 »  At the same time, perspectives for
4E are not necessarily limited to quantitative
measurement, calculability, formalization
and computational models of cognition,
even if an analytical perspective suggests a
tertium non datur:
“ Either way, what remains clear is that 4E ap-
proaches face a dilemma: either eschew the appa-
ratus of mathematical formalism and retreat into
descriptive impotence or embrace it and inherit
a computational model of cognition; tertium non
”
datur. (Carney 2020: 82; italics in orginal)
« 25 »  From a constructivist perspective
that advocates knowledge diversity, a state-
ment by Ernst von Glasersfeld (1997) on
“The incommensurability of scientific and
poetic knowledge” might be helpful at this
point:
“ If humanity is to find a viable equilibrium for
survival on this planet, scientists and mystics will
have to acknowledge that although the rational
coordination of actual experience and the wisdom
gleaned from poetic metaphors are incommensu-
rate, they need not be incompatible. The most ur-
gent task seems to be to develop a way of thinking
”
and living that gives proper due to both. (Gla-
sersfeld 1997: 6)
Conclusion
« 26 »  There are many pathways of in-
novation in education, if any. As with regard
to societal and communicative contexts
generally (Mansell 2018: 61), dialogues and
polylogical approaches to possible pathways
and alternative futures are needed in edu-
cational contexts, too, in order to overcome
reductionist tendencies in classical cognitiv-
ism (Agostini & Francesconi 2021: 418) as
well as in educational traditions and wide
parts of contemporary education in the 21st
century (Garrison, Neubert & Reich 2016;
Reich, Garrison & Neubert 2016). Neither
romanticizing traditional ideals of Bildung
nor mechanistic approaches to education
considering learners as learning machines
provide appropriate solutions in view of the
challenges related to issues of learnification,
literacification, datafication, mediatization
or the impacts of the global education in-
dustry. These challenges are relevant to edu-
cation for at least five reasons:
a A large substitution of discourses of
educational research by discourses of
learning sciences would not only ignore
educational research as a discipline in its
own right but also contribute to reduc-
tionist tendencies towards taking educa-
tion to be a commodity and measurable
learning outcome.
b Promoting literacy as a key concept for
all sorts of literacies fails to recognize
the relative importance of literacy in
relation to knowledge forms and episte-
mological practices that correspond to
numeracy, mathemacy, oracy, visuacy,
picturacy, and audability as well as their
relevance for cognition and education.
c Datafication in education tends to pro-
mote operative fictions of comprehen-
sive formalizability, digital represent-
ability, calculability, predictability and
disposability of pedagogical processes.
d Mediatization in the sense of “mak-
ing something mediate” (Mittelbarm-
achen) – in contrast to medialization in
the sense of changing media forms and
historical-medial constellations (Hug &
Leschke 2021) – is related to issues of
power and the colonialization of com-
municative spaces that demand critical
reflection.
e There is no evidence that the global edu-
cation industry is promoting Bildung in
the sense of self-determined personal
development and emancipation, capaci-
ties for free speech and democracy, or
the individual and collective transgres-
sion of political and economic decep-
tion against the background of claims of
enlightenment.
As for appropriate and viable solutions,
their scopes of meanings can be based on
critical valuations of contemporary educa-
tionalization formulas, non-foundationalist
reasoning (Heyting 2001) and polylogical
orientations (Wimmer 2007). However,
they are neither restricted to romanticizing
or whitewashing traditional pedagogies nor
to cultural centrisms, arbitrary sets of skill-
ing or digitalization programs in the service
of educational surveillance and control.
« 27 »  As for future prospects of research
in the fields of 4E cognition and education,
both are facing challenges at the crossroads
of learning and Bildung, not least regarding
methodological orientations. Inasmuch as
limitations of mathematical languages, cal-
culation, computing, digitalization and al-
gorithmic thinking are rather ignored than
reflected, claims of balancing measurable
and non-measurable dimensions of educa-
tion would be unreliable and not contribute
to greater ecological validity. If 4E cognition
approaches aim at being relevant for educa-
tional dimensions and Bildung, it is neces-
sary to consider holistic and particularistic
views, descriptive and normative perspec-
tives, as well as formalizable and non-for-
malizable aspects of educational processes.
If 4E refers to an understanding of embod-
ied, extended, embedded and enactive cog-
nition that is primarily related to predictable
behavior and calculable outputs of learning,
its relevance for education in the 21st centu-
ry will be rather limited in view of the global
dynamics of complex crises and challenges
related to an Earth for All (Dixson-Declève
et al. 2022). What Ellen Langemann (1989:
185) said with a focus on Northern America
more than three decades ago – “One cannot
understand the history of education in the
United States during the twentieth century
unless one realizes that Edward Thorndike
won and John Dewey lost” – would then ap-
ply to the future of 4E cognition, too.
« 28 »  If we are interested in educational
futures that correspond with democratic
systems and procedures, conceptualizing
education and learning as use cases of social
engineering or social physics (Adolf & Stehr
2021) would not open up viable solutions. It
would rather stimulate tendencies towards
techno-feudalism and orientations towards
principles of algocracy10 that clearly place
10 | “Rule by algorithm? Big data and the
threat of algocracy,” by John Danaher, 6 January
2014. Retrieved 6 October 2022 from https://phil-
osophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2014/01/
rule-by-algorithm-big-data-and-threat.html
 Media-Cultural Constructivism
Education and 4E Cognition Theo Hug

{ THEO HUG
is a professor of educational sciences and head of the Department of Media, Society and
Communication at the University of Innsbruck, as well as coordinator of the Innsbruck Media
Studies research group. His areas of interest include media education and media literacy, theory
of knowledge and mobile learning, and methodology and philosophy of science. Together with Josef
Mitterer, he is literary executor of the Ernst von Glasersfeld archive (see http://evg-archive.net).

data-based behavioral modification in data-
fied societies over human agency. Accord-
ingly, democratic governance of educational
systems and communication networks as
well as discursive clarification of the indi-
vidual and social imaginary (Oklopcic 2018;
James 2019) regarding futures of education
is crucial if the power to define and design
educational environments is not meant to be
primarily a matter of industrial or ideologi-
cal interests.
« 29 »  Successfully dealing with critical
ecologies and the challenges described in the
previous sections calls for a clear awareness
of entanglements of material and discursive
ecologies, critical designs valuing privacy
and human dignity and working aloof from
socio-technological oppression of human
agency.11 Considering the relevance of en-
tanglements of micro-, meso – and macro-
levels in education is indispensable for the
development of viable approaches, in view
of paradoxical constellations of, for exam-
ple, open education and open-source ecolo-
gies (Taffel 2019: 204) and the dynamics of
media colonization of educational ecologies,
lifeworlds and society. Enhanced perspec-
tives of cognitive sciences and educational
research informed by interactive and media-
cultural constructivism can mutually benefit
each other and contribute significantly to
the future of education.
11 |  “From uncritical design to critical exam-
inations of its systemic consequences,” Keynote
slides by Klaus Krippendorff at the Relating Sys-
tems Thinking and Design (RSDX) Symposium,
2021, https://rsdsymposium.org/professor-dr-
klaus-krippendorff/
Funding
No external funding was received while
writing this manuscript.
Competing interests
The author declares that he has no com-
peting interests.
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Received: 2 November 2022
Revised: 11 February 2023
Accepted: 18 February 2023