Enactive Assemblages: Exploring the Bodily Dimension of Learning in Immersive Technology Enabled Environments. Insights from a Literature Review.

In the contemporary postdigital context (Jandrić et al., 2018; Rivoltella & Rossi, 2024), the new technologies that increasingly shape educational and learning environments produce new interactions between humans and non-humans, transform relational and material spaces, and thereby give rise to new forms of education and knowledge that require novel conceptual categories and analytical tools to be investigated (Piromalli, Viteritti & Zampano, 2024). A significant strand of research in robotics, bioengineering, and communication technologies has identified the human body, with its physical qualities, as a frontier for the implementation of new technologies (Barbanti & Barone, 2022). In the attention that these fields devote to the perceptual modalities and sensorimotor patterns of living systems, a systemic enactive logic appears to be emerging. Enactive and embodied approaches (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991; Gallagher, 2023), rooted in some of the most innovative assumptions of cybernetics, biology, and twentieth-century constructivist epistemology (Damiano & Ceruti, 2013; Galimberti, 2024), today identify immersive technology-enabled learning environments, particularly Mixed Reality environments (Speicher et al., 2019), as a fertile area for investigating the role of the bodily dimension in learning processes (Gonçalves et al., 2024) due to the possibilities these environments offer for exploring in new ways the entanglement of bodies, technologies, and knowledge (Gallagher & Lindgren, 2015; Xu, Kang & Yan, 2022). In the Italian school system, the “Scuola 4.0” Plan (Ministero dell’Istruzione, 2022), through investment line 3.2, set the objective of transforming approximately 100,000 classrooms into innovative learning environments by 2025. The most advanced level of transformation is described as one in which physical spaces can be freed and reshaped, and equipped with technologies that support immersive experiences, multiple projection surfaces, and strong connections with virtual environments. From a post-critical perspective (Esposito & Landri, 2024), it therefore becomes necessary to further investigate and identify conceptual tools that can help examine how immersive technologies participate in educational assemblages. The study develops an ongoing literature review aimed at identifying and critically examining research that draws on enactive principles to design, observe, and assess learning experiences in immersive, technology-enabled learning environments. The review is being conducted using major education databases (ERIC, Scopus, Web of Science, JSTOR, PsycINFO, Education Research Complete, Education Database, and SciELO), as well as search engines providing access to grey literature (e.g., Google Scholar). The key dimensions investigated are a) educational purposes and pedagogical objectives informing the design of immersive enactive experiences across different educational domains (e.g., biodiversity education, special education, STEM education); b) the conceptual tools useful for deepening the analysis and design of learning environments mediated by immersive technologies; c) and the expected and actual effects reported in literature. The contribution will outline the theoretical framework guiding the review and the methodological criteria adopted for materials selection and analysis. It will also sketch a pedagogical reflection on the educational implications and recurring patterns emerging at the intersection between the enactive approach and immersive technologies, presented as tentative results that will guide the next steps of this exploration.