Within this reality, the ‘collective’ in learning processes was presented differently
on a range of degree and direction of causality. One approach presented the collective as
a given environment, a set of conditions, disciplines, practices and objects within which
a learning agent interacted. The degree to which this set of conditions was
interdependent with or entirely separate from the learning agent varied, but it was not
ascribed causality. Few outside the co-participation/co-emergent themes analysed how
this environment came into existence, or how its conditions changed through learning
interactions. A second presentation ascribed more active pedagogic intervention to the
collective, configuring the collective as an agent actively facilitating learning (human
mentors, a set of directions, or diffuse affordances and inhibitors of learning embedded
within the collective). A third enacted the collective as a causal entity entirely separate
from the learner, acting upon the learner through determining ideologies, intentional
programs, or organizational structures. A fourth approach most evident in the
sensemaking theme reversed the direction of causality, configuring the collective as the
outcome of learning, constructed through individuals’ meanings or actions.