A scoping review on the integration of object-oriented ontology into the field of pedagogy

Pedagogical approaches often assume fixed ontological positions, such as teacher-centered, curriculum-centered, child-centered, or world-centered perspectives, which tend to overlook the complexity of educational practice. These approaches limit educators’ ability to adaptively shift between diverse aims, including cognitive development, individual flourishing, social learning, and critical emancipation. This scoping review explores the potential of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) to introduce ontological flexibility into pedagogical discourse and practice, by addressing the research question: what is known on the integration of OOO into the field of pedagogy? A search was conducted across five databases: ERIC, Education Research Complete, Academic Search Complete, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and Teacher Reference Center. Analysis of eleven included studies, published between 2011 and 2022, reveals that pedagogical practice is undesirably reduced when the ontological position is predetermined. Instead, educational practice consists of multiple irreducible objects, such as students, teachers, curricula, technologies, educational processes, methods, facts. The findings support the development of an adaptive pedagogical approach in which educational purpose emerges through the systematic comparison of objects, rather than predefined by approaches. OOO provides a framework for practitioners to imagine practices in which learning and self-realization unfold through shared participation in meaningful objects.