Received: 27 January 2021 | Accepted: 28 April 2021
DOI: 10.1111/bjet.13121
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT
Theorising hybrid lifelong learning
Rikke Toft Nørgård
School of Education, Aarhus University,
Aarhus, Denmark
Correspondence
Rikke Toft Nørgård, Department of
Educational Theory and Curriculum
Studies, The Danish School of Education,
Aarhus University, Campus Aarhus,
Nobelparken, Bygning 1483, Jens Chr.
Skous Vej 4, Aarhus 8000, Denmark.
Email: rtoft@edu.au.dk
Funding information
None
© 2021 British Educational Research Association
Br J Educ Technol. 2021;52:1709–1723.  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/bjet
Abstract
In the pre-­ pandemic world learning was most often
onsite, in-­person and co-­ located. This was turned
upside down during the pandemic where online sud-
denly became the ‘new normal’. To continue learning
in a pandemic world, learning providers and institu-
tions were required to rethink and reconfigure learning
to more online and ‘pandemic-­friendly’ formats. In the
aftermath of emergency teaching and learning, provid-
ers, developers and teachers are now looking ahead to
contemplate its impact on the educational landscape.
Here, the large-­scale, wide-­spread development and
delivery of online, blended and hybrid learning for-
mats might demarcate a turning point for education.
However, hybridity, hybrid learning environments and
hybrid learning carry with them particular conceptu-
alisations, characteristics and frameworks we need to
bear in mind when thinking about lifelong learning in
a post-­pandemic world. This article is an effort to pro-
vide an operationalisation of theories for hybrid lifelong
learning through asking: How can we understand the
concepts of hybrids, hybridization and hybridity in order
to take advantage of the potentials and opportunities
these concepts hold when it comes to lifelong learning?
And how can we apply this understanding to describe
hybrid lifelong learning in ways that sets it apart from
emergency teaching and learning as well as other simi-
lar formats such as online learning or parallel teaching?
KEYWORDS
hybrid learning, hybrid learning environments, hybridity, lifelong
learning, post-­pandemic education
| 1709
1710 |    NØRGÅRD

Practitioner notes
What is already known about this topic
• Hybrid learning environments is a central topic in the field, but it is not clear how
we should think about this term.
• Hybrid learning has grown substantially in importance. Yet the field is still
under-­theorised.
• Hybrid learning environments are challenging and under-­researched. The disso-
lution of dichotomies central in hybrid learning makes it more complex and less
predictable.
What this paper adds
• Theoretical groundwork is provided to circumvent the “common sense” under-
standing of hybridity in hybrid learning.
• Synthesises insights from a body of recent research on hybrid education and hy-
brid learning, reflecting the complexity added by the notion of hybridity to learning,
learning environments and lifelong learning.
• A novel conception of hybridity that foregrounds the complexity, entanglement and
dissolution of dichotomies as well as a more integrated and holistic theorisation
of the assumptions and premises that underpin hybrid learning, based on existing
theories and research.
Implications for practice and/or policy
• More theoretically grounded accounts of hybridity, hybrid learning and hybrid
learning environments provide richer explanations of these terms, and would ben-
efit the field.
• The paper's theoretical perspective prompts some rethinking of how design for
hybrid learning occurs, what it consists of and how it may be improved.
• Teachers who want to foster hybrid learning environments and hybrid lifelong
learning should be aware of using an integrated theoretical approach when ana-
lysing or designing for situations where learning is hybridised.
• Researchers need to be more explicit about the theories that underpin their stud-
ies of hybrid education, hybrid learning and hybrid learning environments.

INTRODUCTION

Lifelong learning has a long history of learning with, from and through each other and the
world to enable professional and continuing development. However, within the context of the
COVID-­19 pandemic, business as usual was suddenly no longer an option for most courses
or programmes as learning providers and institutions suspended onsite and in-­person learn-
ing. To continue learning in a pandemic world, learning providers and institutions were re-
quired to rethink and reconfigure their onsite in-­person delivery strategies to other more
‘pandemic-­friendly’ formats such as online, blended or hybrid learning (LeBlanc, 2020).
However, this pivoting of learning to online was carried out as an uneasy and unwelcomed
learning experiment (Moor, 2020) due to its enforced and rushed nature. This urgency and
lack of time for preparation caused pandemic learning and teaching to move through stages
of panic (pivoting to online in a matter of days), survival (persevering and enduring in an
HYBRID LIFELONG LEARNING    | 1711

online digital environment for the following months) and grit (planning and developing online
learning for the longer haul). As the pandemic continues, online learning has become ‘the
new normal’, causing providers, institutions, teachers and learners to adjust to, engage in
and develop formats for these changed ways of living, learning and working (Khalili, 2020).
It is still too early to predict what this ‘new normal’ will entail for lifelong learning in a
post-­pandemic world, but the large-­scale, wide-­spread planning, development and deliv-
ery of alternative learning environments will inevitably create a turning point for education
(LeBlanc, 2020; Moor, 2020) as well as impact traditional conceptions of how teaching and
learning is practiced. In the pre-­pandemic world learning was usually onsite, in-­person, syn-
chronous and co-­located while online, blended or hybrid learning formats were rare and
supplementary. This was turned upside down during the pandemic where these formats
suddenly became the main way for learners to learn, socialise, connect, interact and com-
municate with their teachers and peers (Khalili, 2020).
If providers and institutions tune in, pay attention and inform themselves in relation to the
long history and research tradition of online, hybrid or blended learning, there is great poten-
tial and many possibilities for furthering opportunities for lifelong learning. By integrating the
rich knowledge, critical awareness, conceptual frameworks, established methods and de-
veloped practices within these research fields—­which before the pandemic was considered
niche and specialised—­there are ample opportunities for competency development and
capacity building within lifelong learning on the backdrop of the pandemic. However, there
are also great risks and big pitfalls, if the perception of online or hybrid learning is only drawn
from the practice of the panic, survival and grit stages of emergency teaching and learning.
Building only on pandemic experiences could easily lead to an understanding of online and
hybrid learning as inferior when compared to in-­person co-­located learning. Accordingly,
there is a necessity to (re)connect current pandemic practices of hybrid lifelong learning to
pre-­pandemic theories and research within this field. As stated by Hodges et al. (2020):

Researchers in educational technology, specifically in the sub-­discipline of on-

line and distance learning, have carefully defined terms over the years to dis-
tinguish between the highly variable design solutions that have been developed
and implemented: distance learning, distributed learning, blended learning, on-
line learning, mobile learning, and others. Yet an understanding of the important
differences has mostly not diffused beyond the insular world of educational tech-
nology and instructional design researchers and professionals. Here, we want
to offer an important discussion around the terminology and formally propose a
specific term for the type of instruction being delivered in these pressing circum-
stances: emergency remote teaching (Hodges et al., 2020, unpaged)

This is very much also the case when it comes to the notions of hybridity and hybrid learn-
ing. A term even more niche than online or blended learning, but that are now used in various
ways to signal everything from parallel teaching (some learners online, some learners onsite),
blended learning (use of digital or online resources in onsite teaching) to emergency remote
teaching (teaching and learning during the pandemic). However, hybridity, hybrid learning envi-
ronments and hybrid learning carry with them distinctive conceptualisations, theories, charac-
teristics and ways of thinking that sets them apart from other digital or online learning formats.
This article is an effort to point towards some of these distinctions and characteristics to offer a
theorising of hybrid lifelong learning that sets it decidedly apart from emergency teaching and
learning as well as other similar formats such as blended learning or parallel teaching.
1712 |    NØRGÅRD

LIFELONG LEARNING IN A POST-­PANDEMIC POST-­DIGITAL WORLD

Emerging from the pandemic, digital and online learning has become familiar and pervasive
and sprawled into a myriad of online, blended, parallel and hybrid formats consisting of vari-
ous heterogeneous and diversified structures and formats where the dichotomy between
digital and non-­digital have ceased to make much sense. The online and digital has escaped
the hype of the new and the kingdom of the exotic. In a post-­pandemic world, learning will
now face the challenge of moving beyond technical solutions, shiny platforms, technological
set-­ups and tech trends to focus on broader and deeper questions of learning (White, 2009).
Here, the notion of ‘post-­digital’ points towards the abandonment of the digital and online
as outlandish and the disbandment of digital-­non-­digital dichotomies (Taffel, 2016). In post-­
digital lifelong learning, there are no sharp contrasts between digital, online or distributed
learning environments and physical, onsite or co-­located environments. The digital is as
‘natural’, ‘real’, ‘authentic’ and inherently entangled in our everyday learning interactions
and experiences as non-­ digital forms of learning (Feenberg, 2009). Accordingly, post-­
digitalisation constitutes a close fit with the hybridization of learning environments. In both
post-­digital and hybrid learning environments, learners move imperceptibly across digital
and non-­digital materials, spaces, tools, formats and networks within the hybridized learn-
ing environment (Spiller, 2009). Such sprawling and hybridized learning experiences are far
removed from the notion of e.g. the virtual classroom (Feenberg, 2009).
Overall, post-­pandemic post-­digital learning environments pose opportunities for new
forms of entangled and complex learning where institutions, society, learners, profes-
sionals and citizens enter into closer dialogue and partnerships with each other (Nørgård
et al., 2019). The aim is to provide learners with new possibilities for lifelong learning through
hybrid entanglements of time, space, people, structures and practices in the form of hybrid
learning environments (Hilli et al., 2019; Zitter & Hoeve, 2012). This involves leaving dichot-
omies such as onsite-­online, physical-­digital or synchronous-­asynchronous learning behind
and view learning technologies, tools and contexts as hybrid partners in lifelong learning by
way of designing for post-­digital hybrid learning practices and environments.
The article addresses lifelong learning in a post-­pandemic post-­digital world through no-
tions of dissolution, entanglement and hybridization by asking: How can we understand the
concepts of hybrids, hybridization and hybridity in order to take advantage of the potentials
and opportunities these concepts hold when it comes to lifelong learning? How can we apply
this understanding to describe hybrid learning formats and environments that allow for the
dissolution and entanglement of traditional boundaries in learning? And how can we grasp
such hybrid ways of knowing, doing and being to develop hybrid learning environments
that enable learners to engage in lifelong learning in, for and with the world? Together the
sections of the article provide an operationalisation of hybrid theories for lifelong learning
through presenting a theoretical foundation for hybrid lifelong learning.

THE CONCEPTS OF HYBRID, HYBRIDISATION AND HYBRIDITY

The term hybridity originates from Latin and has its roots in biology where it refers to cross-­
fertilisation or the fusion of separate parts or species into a new one. A hybrid is in its
essence is ‘the offspring of two animals or plants different in species or varieties; a half-­
breed, cross-­breed or mongrel’ (Kapchan & Strong, 1999, p. 240). Accordingly, a hybrid is
decidedly heterogeneous of origin as it is composed from the fusion of existing parts (e.g.
animals, cultures, objects, plants) while simultaneously being a new composite on its own
terms. There are many strange hybrids in existence such as the liger (a hybrid cross be-
tween a male lion and a female tiger), the naluga (a hybrid cross between a narwhal and a
HYBRID LIFELONG LEARNING    | 1713

beluga) as well as more common hybrids like grapefruits or peppermint plants. Importantly,
hybrids such as mules—­are not defined by being a donkey-­horse or a horse-­donkey, but
something new, a unique species or composite; like a mule. The potential for hybridisation is
vast, as it has been estimated that 88% of all fish species could hybridise with at least one
other, given the opportunity.
According to the book Why Evolution is True (Coyne, 2009) hybridisation is an import-
ant mechanism when it comes to evolutionary diversity in, e.g. plants and their prospect of
branching out into new species. In evolution, processes of hybridisation can boost biodiver-
sity. A hybrid might be able to eat foods that are poisonous to its ‘parent species’ or have
the ability to thrive in a formerly hostile habitat. Over time, the hybrid can evolve into its own
‘mature species’, like the golden-­crowned manakin, the grapefruit or the savannah cat. This
way, hybridisation, is a creative force. Importantly, and against popular belief, not all hybrids
are sterile (and the issue of infertility does not make much sense when we think of hybrid
cultures, objects or education). Following from this, hybrid education and learning becomes
centred around the entanglement and cross-­breeding of e.g. concepts, formats, contexts
and roles that are transfigured into new configurations. Unlike blended learning, then, hybrid-
ity embraces the qualities of fusing dimensions and dissolving dichotomies thro ugh working
with the blurred lines of today's post-­digital world. Rorabaugh and Stommel (2012) beautifully
describes the multifarious, heterogeneous and intermixing nature of hybridity in this way:

As a philosophical concept, hybridity suggests hesitation at a threshold. Hybridity

is not an attempt to neatly bridge the gap, but extends the moment of hesitation
and thereby confuses easy categorization. And, as we allow the things to rub
against each other, two things that might not otherwise touch, we invite them to
interact, allowing synthesis (and even perforation) along their boundaries. As the
digital and analogue—­the physical and virtual—­commingle, we must open to
random acts of pedagogy—­to connections that are, like the web, associative and
lively but sometimes violent and deformed. In this hybridity is not always safe,
moving incessantly (and dangerously) towards something new—­something yet
undetermined (Rorabaugh & Stommel, 2012, unpaginated)

The notions of hybrid, hybridisation and hybridity in relation to education, learning and learn-
ing environments have had a great increase in interest, searches and mentions since COVID-­19
forced most providers and institutions of lifelong learning into pivoting to online. However, usage
of these terms has often been confused with notions of online, blended, parallel, flipped or other
learning forms. In order to understand hybrid learning environments and hybrid lifelong learn-
ing, we must then first develop a firmer conceptual understanding of these notions. Initially, the
below distinction between hybrid, hybridity and hybridisation can be made:

• A hybrid refers to a new species, form or culture that is a cross, fusion or dissolution of al-
ready existing species, forms or cultures. A hybrid such as a mule is neither a donkey-­horse
nor a horse-­donkey, but something ‘other’, a new form; a mule. That is, new designs or for-
mats (hybrids) for higher education institutions and higher education. Hybrids are the meeting
of two separate forms, relating to both abstract and concrete phenomena. When we consider
the hybrid figure, we feel that it is carrying a double value because it reminds us of two dis-
tinct forms which we recognise while at the same time there is something new and previously
unknown.
• Hybridization describes the process of cross-­breeding, fusing or dissolving species, forms or
cultures to create new hybrids, that is, the processes undertaken to develop or design for new
hybrids. The process of hybridisation shows that the form we call hybrid is in a state where it
is not yet established as a ‘mature species’, but is something on its way to becoming.
1714 |    NØRGÅRD

• Hybridity is a term for the relation between a hybrid and its source material. Hybridity highlights
what makes a hybrid a hybrid—­that is, its ‘otherness’, distinctiveness or signature traits when
compared to other species, forms or cultures, the distinctive or salient characteristics of the
new hybrid coming into being. The concept of hybridity today represents a wide connotative
field with both highly specialised meanings as well as vague and imprecise interpretations.

HYBRID LEARNING

Based on the above, hybrid learning, then, points towards the formation of new lifelong
learning cultures, experiences and practices that opens up lifelong learning for participation
and engagement beyond the boundaries of the institution, classroom and learner role in
new ways. In hybrid learning, learners work to think ‘otherwise’ about time, space, materials,
structures, contexts and roles to break down traditional dichotomies and make new forms
emerge. Consequently, hybridity demands change in institutional practices, educational
spaces and ways of learning. Here, hybridisation is a way of intentionally and reflectively
‘overlapping and blending different concepts at the same time, such as online and offline,
formal and informal’ (Kohls et al., 2018) as a methodology for fostering new forms of partici-
pation, inclusion and engagement in learning and society (Köppe et al., 2017).
Overall, prior work on hybrid education and hybrid learning (Cohen et al., 2020; Kohls
et al., 2017; Köppe et al., 2017; Pedersen et al., 2018) highlights a shift in the structure of
education, as well as in teaching and learning towards connectivity, networks and collabo-
rations. Hybrid learning environments cut across, transform or even transgress traditional
boundaries and dichotomies; through such transformations and transgressions, hybridity
in education asks of us—­as learners and citizens—­to reflect on the reasons for, value and
purpose of upholding these dividing lines:

In hybrid education people inside and outside the campus [or learning environ-
ment] meet and intermingle, academic life becomes mongrel as the personal,
professional and academic merge. Even teacher, students and institutions
cross-­fertilize to construct new hybrid contexts and collectives across traditional
boundaries [...] On the grounds of such different hybrid constellations, the possi-
bility for new higher education futures emerges (Köppe et al., 2017, p. 2).

Hybridity, then, implies environments for empowering teachers and students to collabora-
tively define and redefine what it means to teach and learn through processes of hybridization
(O’Byrne & Pytash, 2015). Hybrid learning is not dependent on a location-­specific in-­person
nature in either professional or academic life. By, for example, bringing teachers, experts, prac-
titioners and learners together in, say, real-­life digitally distributed but contextually situated proj-
ects, a broader spectrum of thoughts and ideas becomes possible. It invites learners to explore
spaces of interest outside the classroom, do site visits while simultaneously participating in
class or present their work to the public while concurrently submitting it to the formal assess-
ment systems (Amoroso, 2014).

HYBRID LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

A hybrid learning environment is then a learning environment that utilises the process of hy-
bridisation to create hybridity in learning through dissolving or fusing traditional dichotomies
between for instance offline/online, digital/analogue or formal/informal learning, to create
‘other’ forms of learning environments. Here, a learning environment refers to the diverse
HYBRID LIFELONG LEARNING    | 1715

physical locations, contexts, and cultures in which students learn and ’the term is often
used as a more accurate or preferred alternative to classroom, which has more limited and
traditional connotations—­a room with rows of desks and a chalkboard, for example’ (Great
Schools Partnerships, 2013). The definition recognises that learners learn across different
tools, spaces and contexts and constitutes the learning environment as a total ecosystem of
learning (Bates, 2015):

The term learning environment encompasses learning resources and technol-

ogy, means of teaching, modes of learning, and connections to societal and
global contexts. The term also includes human behavioral and cultural dimen-
sions, including the vital role of emotion in learning, and it requires us to ex-
amine and sometimes rethink the roles of teachers and students. The focus
on information technology in education is expanding from the enhancement of
learning spaces to include factors beyond hardware, software, and the network.
The learning environment is a composite of human practices and material sys-
tems, much as an ecology is the combination of living things and the physical
environment (Educause)

Furthermore, in order to be a ‘hybrid’ learning environment the focus is on hybridization

processes, the hybridity of the learning environment and on offering new hybrids, or types, of
learning interactions and experiences:

The composition of a Hybrid Learning Space is simultaneously the decomposition

of dichotomies—­rather than thinking in exclusive ors, the hybrid learning designer
thinks in inclusive ands. It is a learning space that tries to simultaneously be phys-
ical and digital, online and offline, process and product, for the individual and the
collective, for the university and the world, formal and informal, synchronous and
asynchronous and so forth. Hybrid Learning Spaces are the intentional and reflec-
tive dissolution of particular dichotomies based on particular pedagogical purposes
aiming for particular learning interactions and experiences. It is a space of inclu-
sion, not exclusion. (Nørgård et al., 2019, p. 77)

This can for example be in the form of learning interactions that unfold as a coherent expe-
rience of being in multiple places at once: It can be a synchronous group discussion, where
one learner is sitting at home in her or his apartment with the children next door being home-­
schooled, another learner is participating in the discussion from a cafe while the teacher is
joining in from a classroom at campus. In the shared online room, they all bring in the different
locations and realities while writing together in a shared document. While writing and talking
together they include comments and questions from an asynchronous shared Slack forum
where all learners have had the opportunity to suggest themes or subjects to be discussed.
Also, they use Twitter to tweet from the session to bring in expert opinions on the matters being
discussed, ask for inspiration or resources as well as tweet their own insights or reflections. In
the end, they open the online document up for the world to comment on as they share the link
with the rest of the learners to co-­write with them, but also with the world through Twitter asking
for comments and contributions.
In this way a hybrid learning environment exists as an in-­between and neither-­nor envi-
ronment characterized by constant signification and negotiation and where primordial no-
tions of culture and locality have been replaced by a floating and multiple, indistinguishable
and indeterminate existence. Hybridisation, then, denotes the process of bringing new ‘spe-
cies of learning environments into existence through cross-­fertilization or cross-­breeding
existing ones. Drawing on Bakhtin (1984), we can understand hybrid learning environments
1716 |    NØRGÅRD

as polyphonic, rhizomatic and heterogeneous in nature. Consequently, hybrid learning en-

vironments are not ‘safe’ or ‘stable’, but always on the move towards something new, never
fully formed or determined—­either in the wild or through curious or controlled experimenta-
tion or manipulation. Following philosopher Edward S. Casey and his philosophy of space
and place, we can furthermore understand hybrid learning environments as places charac-
terised diversity, multiplicity and a polyvocality of directions. Hybrid learning environments
draw people, contexts and places together to form a holistic but heterogeneous hybrid that is
an intimate ‘some-­where’ for ‘some-­body’ out of disparate locations, diverse tools, distinctive
contexts and different people. In this way:

We are reminded of Heidegger’s emphasis on Räumen (clearing space),

Einräumen (making room) and Raumgeben (giving space). Similarly, ‘spacing,’
a term that persists throughout Derrida’s writings, implies the clearing of space
for events to happen: spacing is giving them room in which to occur. Such room
is room for place. (Case y, 1997, p. 313)

What sets hybrid learning environments apart from, e.g. most online learning spaces or
blended learning is its distinctive character of being a place characterised by ‘otherness’—­a
heterotopia (Foucault, 1984). Heterotopias, such as hybrid environments, can position itself
in multiple places at once, places that in themselves seems incompatible, such as a cafe, a
living room, a classroom, a museum, a company, a field site and an online video conferencing
room. Hybrid learning environments in the form of heterotopias distort and unsettle contexts of
learning to create a place of otherness where worlds within worlds are fused and learners come
together to learn in hybrid ways:

Hybrid pedagogy does not just describe an easy mixing of onground and online
learning, but is about bringing the sorts of learning that happen in a physical place
and the sorts of learning that happen in a virtual place into a more engaged and
dynamic conversation (Stommel, 2012)

In this way, hybrid learning environments aim to create a productive entanglement between
formal learning, professional practice and societal engagement as a way to create hybridised
lifelong learning formats and processes that opens up learning in different ways. Hybridity pro-
motes a horizontal connectedness across activities and subjects inside and outside the formal
learning environment (Instance & Dumont, 2010). Through such hybrid entanglement learners
become engaged in real-­world contexts, professional development and authentic complex tasks
and challenges that invoke active learning processes (Baartman & De Bruijn, 2011; Könings
et al., 2010) to reduce the gap between education, work life and society: ‘In contrast to contem-
porary forms of workplace simulations, work-­integrated learning and so on [...] hybrid learning
environments seek to integrate and merge learning and working’ (Zitter & Hoeve, 2012, p. 23).
Taken together, hybrid learning environments consist of an entanglement of authentic tasks
and learning processes that trigger the enactment of hybrid roles (learner-­professional-­citizen),
hybrid contexts (institution-­society and informal-­formal), hybrid practices (thinking-­tinkering and
acquisition-­performance), and hybrid materials/spaces (digital-­analogue and online-­onsite).
However, such ‘hyper-­hybridity’ (Nørgård & Hilli, 2021) can also lead to confusion, hesitation
and frustration among the participants due to the flexibility, openness, fuzzy boundaries of hy-
brid learning environment, something that require heightened attention, care and negotiation
from the teachers (Nørgård & Hilli, 2021). In hybrid learning environments different life arenas
and communication spaces merge causing learners professional and private life to become
more entangled, something that might not sit well with learners that prefer clear boundaries
HYBRID LIFELONG LEARNING    | 1717

between these spaces. Köppe et al. (2017) point out that hybrid learning requires that learners
dare to take risks, tolerate frustration, and accept that there may not be clear goals.
or a strict course structure causing learners to struggle with the many different entangle-
ments they are part of in the hybrid learning environment. As dichotomies are dissolved and
spaces merged, extended presence and meta-­communication is needed to navigate the
“natural” complexity, frustration, confusion and changeability of hyper-­hybrid learning—­both
within higher education and future work life (Nørgård & Hilli, 2021).

HYBRID LIFELONG LEARNING

The focus on hybridisation in lifelong learning highlights the challenges and opportunities
which transpire from the dissolution, fusion or transgression of boundaries between on-­line
and off-­line, on-­site and off-­site, synchronous and asynchronous, formal and informal, voca-
tional and recreational learning and the hybrids that emerge from such processes: ‘people
connect and interact through a hybrid network of physical and technology-­mediated encoun-
ters to co-­construct knowledge and effectively engage in positioning practices necessary
for their work’ (Cook et al., 2015, p. 125). This way, the very notion of what lifelong learning
signifies and how it is experienced and enacted might also change by becoming hybridised.
Looking into some of the literature on lifelong learning in hybrid learning environments it
is generally viewed as both engaging and relevant due to its high level of connectedness
and openness. Through hybrid learning environments, lifelong learners can, for example,
attend synchronous online courses at home, from work or when travelling, and, if sessions
are recorded and shared, learners have the possibility of revisiting or attending the sessions
asynchronously inn their own time as well (Amoroso, 2014). Hybrid learning might also en-
able families to better balance learning, professional work and family life because learning
and work can be carried out across location, time and context. Today lifelong learners find
themselves in an increasingly hybridised work life that requires learners and employees
able to learn and work hybridly (Rorabaugh, 2013). Such hybridisation tendencies point
towards lifelong learning where learners attain competencies and experiences of working
and learning in hybrid ways that are relevant in both present and future work life (Rahm &
Skågeby, 2014).
However, fusion of roles, contexts and spaces into a hybrid learning environment might
also cause challenges to some learners, for example, learners who balance multiple chal-
lenging roles at the same time (e.g. being a mom, spouse and daughter doing home-­
schooling, juggling working-­from-­home obligations and taking care of vulnerable parents
while engaging in hybrid lifelong learning) or learners who struggle to establish a functioning
learning environment (e.g. being without access to a campus, having poor or unstable inter-
net connection or lacking work environment at home). Here, attention towards the ‘shadowy
siblings’ (Aaen & Nørgård, 2015). Importantly, then, developers of and teachers in hybrid life-
long learning must pay attention to and embrace such shadowy siblings: ‘For every idealistic,
positive and “cheerful” virtue of academic knowing and practice, a number of entangled, dis-
torted and “shadowy” sensations, experiences and values mirror it” (Aaen & Nørgård, 2015,
pp. 92–­93). One way to work through this, is to create formats intentionally acknowledging
these circumstances, like the Hybrid Educational Patterns of ‘Nomadic Students’ ‘Runaway
Classroom’, ‘Family Matters’ or ‘Bidirectional Home Visits’ (Köppe et al., 2017). Another,
more crucial way of addressing such aspects of inclusion, equality and diversity is to take a
decidedly value-­based and value-­sensitive approach to hybrid lifelong learning that grounds
hybrid learning environment and teaching practices on implicit value structures and deeper
pedagogical structures something we have highlighted as imperative for the practice of hy-
brid education in Köppe et al. (2017). Here, the values of empathy, belonging, playfulness,
1718 |    NØRGÅRD

autonomy, empowerment, bildung and discovery where established as the value framework
for designing hybrid learning environments.
The hybridisation of learning has proven both crucial and valuable during the pandemic.
The prevalence and uptake of hybrid learning environments during the pandemic holds po-
tential and opportunities for lifelong learning in a post-­pandemic world as well: ‘The digital
gives [...] a voice with which to challenge the traditional paradigm about how and where
people work. The digital enables me to be the kind of mother I want to be, and also the kind
of professional person I want to be, because it allows me to work from a multitude of places’
(Burrows, 2017). Also, the hybridisation of lifelong learning might offer people who would
like to learn but do not have any travel funding or opportunities for attending conferences,
seminars or courses around the world the possibility to attend these instances of lifelong
learning together with other hybrid learners; some onsite, some online and some synchro-
nously, some asynchronously. Lifelong learners might also need to be away from workplace
or institutional learning, because of travel, a sick spouse, a broken back or social anxiety, but
can, through hybridised learning environments, still participate as hybrid learners. Other op-
portunities have emerged for lifelong learners coming from disadvantaged backgrounds or
countries that during the pandemic suddenly found themselves with countless opportunities
for open and free professional development, conferences, courses, technologies, research
and further education from around the globe.
But hybrid lifelong learning also has benefits more traditional learners. Hall and Villareal
(2015) describe how learners who participated in hybrid learning experienced learning ac-
tivities as more engaging and motivating. Also, the learners got a better understanding of
the learning content than they would normally do through more traditional learning formats.
Here, the hybridisation of tasks and interaction proved effective for working and learning.
Overall, Hall and Villareal found an increase in both the quality of learners’ interaction, the
learning process as well as better course evaluations (Hall & Villareal, 2015).
Taken together, the structures, characteristics and values following the hybridisation of
lifelong learning and hybrid learners can be expressed in different ways. One set of design
patterns for hybrid networked learning and a learner is presented in Nørgård et al. (2019).
Here, values, dimensions and hybrid environments work together to invite for networked
learning in, for and with the world. Here the networked hybrid learning environment is de-
scribed as a ‘societal driver’ (Shumar & Robinson, 2018) for lifelong learning by generat-
ing professional development and societal value through academic practice transforming
it into a form of citizenship. Through hybridisation of the learning experience, the lifelong
learner becomes entangled in society and positioned as a learner and a citizen at the same
time through engaging in ‘academic citizenship’ (Arvanitakis & Hornsby, 2016; Nørgård &
Bengtsen, 2016). When becoming entangled with multiple perspectives and contexts from
professional domains, learning domains, cultural domains and private domains, the learn-
ers’ voice and practice becomes hybrid and polyphonic (Nørgård et al., 2019).

HYBRIDIZING LIFELONG LEARNING EXPERIENCES

AND INTERACTIONS

The hybrid lifelong learner is characterised through interconnectedness and embedded-

ness with a wide range of professional and societal domains. Here, hybrid lifelong learning
takes place as a particular form of societal fecundity (Feyerabend, 1999) where learning
and development connects with the world, including, but going beyond, both the individual
and learning environment. All in all, the above theorising of hybrid lifelong learning points
towards particular ways of being, doing and knowing in the world.
HYBRID LIFELONG LEARNING    | 1719

By providing lifelong learning with hybrid learning environments along the lines described
in the above sections, new ‘species’ of learning experiences and interactions are weaved
together through hybridisation. Through integrating hybridity, learning environments can be
a means to overcome the challenging transition between formal education and professional
practice in its wider societal and public domain (Zitter & Hoeve, 2012)—­and, this way, form
learning environments for hybridised lifelong learning:

The emergence of hybrid learning environments is driven by changes in edu-

cational practice. Established educational practices are changing: established
roles, resources and locations are being altered, extended and replaced [...]
Learners are expected to integrate different types of knowledge, for example,
formal knowledge, work process knowledge and practical knowledge (Zitter &
Hoeve, 2012, p. 5)

On the macro-­level, this way of hybridising and opening up lifelong learning experiences and
interactions can be attained in at least three ways:

• Hybridising learning experiences and interactions through opening up learning environments

for the public—­for example, by curating or co-­creating open educational resources together,
participating in courses with people in different roles, contexts and localities or having institu-
tions that are open to all and offer valuable knowledge or products for the public.
• Hybridising learning experiences and interactions through creating learning environments
with the public—­for example, by integrating external participants or practitioners in the learn-
ing environment, offering opportunities for learners to learn and work with the public during
the course or through authentic assignments that make learners ‘do education’ with the pub-
lic through participatory design or project-­based learning.
• Hybridising learning experiences and interactions through integrating learning environments
in the public—­for example, by moving courses or learning activities out into the public do-
main, having learners set up exhibitions or events in the public as part of their learning activ-
ities or conduct their learning activities in workplace or public settings.

All three macro-­formats for creating hybrid lifelong learning environments aim to inter-
weave educational and professional processes and practices to benefit from the strengths
of both formal learning, real-­life experience and societal engagement (Kohls et al., 2018;
Nørgård et al., 2019). Such hybrid entanglements between learning, work life and the pub-
lic counter the challenges of compartmentalisation of learning (the challenge to integrate
acquired knowledge, skills and attitudes) and transferability of learning (the challenge of
applying learning to new problems, contexts and situations) (van Merriënboer et al., 2003).
In ‘Outside In and Inside Out: New Hybrid Education Patterns’ Kohls et al. (2018) describe
six distinctive meso-­patterns of hybrid education which aims to hybridize and open up tradi-
tional learning experiences and interactions and embed them in real world situations:

• Open Hybrid Classroom is a pattern for bringing experts or practitioners from the outside
into the learning environment
• Bring Your Own Assignment is a pattern for bringing learners practical or professional
experience into the learning environment
• Integrating Practitioners is a pattern for bringing real life projects and authentic tasks into
the learning environment
• Runaway Classroom is a pattern for taking learners outside the learning environment and
into public or professional places or contexts of interest
1720 |    NØRGÅRD

• Street Task is a pattern for taking learners outside the learning environment to do field re-
search, experiments, workshops or other external learning activities that involve external
partners
• Public Exams is a pattern for taking learners outside students outside the learning envi-
ronment to present their work, host open webinars, create public exam exhibitions or other
ways of conducting their formal assessment in and with the public. (Kohls et al., 2018)

All six meso-­formats for creating hybrid lifelong learning environments aim to support and
promote learning interactions and experiences which fuse theory and practice, professional
development and formal learning, society and learning environment and requires that learn-
ers think and act in hybridised ways—­allowing the boundaries of the learning environment
to dissolve or break down (Rorabaugh, 2013).
Importantly, the notions of entanglement of public/private, onsite/online, physical/digital
and so found within these formats and the present article's theorising of hybrid lifelong learn-
ing highlight a shift towards focusing on the messy entanglements, embodied practices and
material assemblages inherent in hybridisation processes. As Gourlay (2021) points out:

This allows us to conceptualise digital knowledge practices in a more holis-

tic manner […] In pedagogic terms, greater prominence can be placed on the
embodied nature of practice, thinking about length of time on screen, people’s
physical needs for movement, physical comfort and breaks […] These changes
could move the conception of digital engagement away from the fantasy of the
idealised free-­floating human subject, and towards a more diverse, looser con-
ception of engagement which takes in what is going on around the screen, as
opposed to treating the screen as a narrow portal for a particular type of perfor-
mance. (Gourlay, 2021, p. 64)

Through the notion of hybrid, hybridity and hybridisation, lifelong learning is accentuated as
an entangled, material and lived experience taking place in the reality of a hybridised learning
environment wherein boundaries are blurred (for better and worse), complex realities of ‘liv-
ing at work’ brought to the fore (Gourlay, 2021, p. 64) and dichotomies dissolved in ways that
conjure both the ‘bright potentials’ of hybrid lifelong learning as well as their darker ‘shadowy
siblings’ (Aaen & Nørgård, 2015; Nørgård & Hilli, 2021).

CONCLUSION

In the aftermath of emergency teaching and learning and its stages of panic, survival and
grit, we now find ourselves looking ahead beyond the pandemic to contemplate its impact
on the educational landscape. Here, the large-­scale, wide-­spread development and delivery
of online, blended and hybrid learning environments might demarcate a turning point for
online and hybrid education (LeBlanch, 2020; Moor, 2020). However, the spill-­over effects
of teaching and learning during the pandemic are still largely unknown. As digital and online
ways of working, living and learning has become ‘the new normal’, we have abandoned the
fetishisation of ‘the new’ in these formats (Taffel, 2016; White, 2009) and find ourselves on
the move into a post- ­digital understanding of learning and learning environments. Here, the
digital and online has—­for better and worse—­become thoroughly entangled and integrated
in our everyday actions, interactions and experiences. The big question then is: How might
we move forward in a post-­pandemic post-­digital world so that the potential harms are miti-
gated and the new potentials and possibilities accentuated?
HYBRID LIFELONG LEARNING    | 1721

This, at the very least, require that we are very careful not to draw unwarranted con-
clusions about the nature of online, blended or hybrid teaching and learning based on the
experience of emergency teaching and learning during the pandemic. Carefully designed
hybrid or online learning environments and experiences grounded in established research,
development and practice are meaningfully and categorically different from pandemic ed-
ucation offered online in response to a crisis or disaster (Gourlay, 2021). Most of what was
offered were hastily put together in a stressful situation by teachers or developers without
much (if any) experience with how to best design for meaningful, engaging or varied online,
parallel, hybrid or blended learning. Rather, educational providers were struggling to offer
‘just something’ to learners: A recorded voice-­over on some slides, a lecture streamed from
an empty auditorium, a zoom-­session with slides in presenter mode or a written assignment
in the learning management system. The overall response was impressive, given that most
of these inexperienced teachers (and learners), were pretty much left to their own devices
(metaphorically as well as literally) and, so, were doing the best they could in this situation.
Unfortunately:

These hurried moves online by so many institutions at once could seal the per-
ception of online learning as a weak option, when in truth nobody making the
transition to online teaching under these circumstances will truly be designing
to take full advantage of the affordances and possibilities of the online format
(Hodges et al., 2020, unpaged).

This way, conclusions might be drawn that online and hybrid formats are of lower quality than
traditional onsite formats, despite research showing otherwise (Hodges, et al., unpaged). To
stave off such perceptions, the larger challenge of developing frameworks and understandings
for lifelong learning closely connected to pre-­pandemic theory, research and practice, such as
hybrid education, must now be taken on. A first step in designing for valuable and high-­quality
post-­pandemic post-­digital hybrid lifelong learning could be to draw together best practice and
established knowledge to form tentative guidelines and design principles for future hybrid life-
long learning as a distinctive way of learning.
This article is an effort to commence this work by offering a theoretical foundation for
hybrid lifelong learning. It points towards that, while designing for hybrid lifelong learning,
the hybrid learning environment needs to be both open and open-­ended in order for hybrid
learning to form and emerge as ‘vibrant matter’ in dialogue with known unknowns or even
unknown unknowns. Importantly, the composition of a hybrid learning environment denotes
the dissolution of dichotomies aimed at creating new forms or species of education and
learning. The fusion of dimensions and values into a hybrid learning environment creates a
pulsating ecological niche for hybrid lifelong learners that sprawl across an array of technol-
ogies, activities and spaces to constitute an open learning environment where new formats,
forms and formations emerge. The learning environment is ‘a hybridising home’ for lifelong
learning with wide walls for co-­creation, collaboration and working together in hybrid part-
nerships. Overall, this article's contribution to lifelong learning highlights the need for further
research into the hybrid, post-­pandemic and post-­digital dimensions of hybrid lifelong learn-
ing as well as the structure, development and hybridisation processes of hybrid learning
environments for lifelong learning.

E T H I C S S TAT E M E N T
The study did not require any ethics clearance as it is not empirical.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
There is no conflict of interest to declare.
1722 |    NØRGÅRD

D ATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T

There is no data associated with the article.

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How to cite this article: Nørgård, R. T. (2021). Theorising hybrid lifelong learning.
British Journal of Educational Technology, 52, 1709–­1723. https://doi.org/10.1111/
bjet.13121
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