The proliferation of digital and AI technologies has radically expanded where, how, and with whom learning takes place. Informal digital learning, spanning engagement with mobile devices, online platforms, and AI tools, is reshaping how education is experienced and understood in the digital age. It challenges conventional boundaries between school-based and self-directed learning, prompting educators to reconsider where learning occurs, how it is valued, and who controls it (Dressman & Sadler, 2020; Liu et al., 2025).
This special issue of Humanities & Social Sciences Communications seeks to advance interdisciplinary dialogue on how informal digital learning is transforming pedagogy, equity, and educational futures in an era of pervasive digital and AI technologies. We invite contributions that critically examine the opportunities and tensions surrounding digital and AI-mediated learning, particularly as they relate to learner agency, inclusion, and the ethics of participation across global contexts. We welcome submissions that explore theoretical, empirical, and methodological dimensions of informal digital learning across educational phases and sociocultural contexts. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Theorizing informal and self-directed digital learning as a paradigm for educational transformation
- Pedagogical hybridity and the interplay between formal instruction and informal digital practice
- Critical digital literacies, datafication, and algorithmic governance in education
- AI, ethics, and bias: implications for equity, access, and participation
- Learner identity, agency, and investment in the age of generative AI
- Methodological innovations for studying digital and informal learning ecologies
- Comparative and cross-cultural perspectives, especially from the Global South
- Policy, curriculum, and teacher education responses to informal digital learning
Submissions that integrate critical, theoretical, and global perspectives are especially encouraged, as are studies that foreground issues of social justice, diversity, and inclusion in digital learning.
