At the boundary of school: Continuity and discontinuity in learning across contexts

Abstract

In response to various societal changes, schools are increasingly developing an outward orientation, seeking to connect to students' out-of-school participations. Simultaneously, educational research is starting to adopt a multisystemic approach to learning. Focusing on continuity and discontinuity in students' learning across school and out-of-school contexts, we synthesize 186 empirical studies. After conceptualizing school and out-of-school in relation to each other, we find that continuity can be the result of different educational intentions, but it also occurs as a given. Discontinuity is mainly found for non-mainstream students, with severe implications for students' learning and participation in school. Some studies show how different actors, including students, deliberately seek discontinuity, challenging the widespread preference for continuity. We discuss the (im)possibilities for schools in connecting to students' wider lives and advance the degrees of freedom afforded in school as an underlying condition for establishing continuity.