Urgent societal challenges have led to unease in our socio‐cultural interactions and the production systems that underpin our lives. To confront such challenges, collaboration stands out as an essential approach in accomplishing joint goals and producing new knowledge. It calls for interdisciplinary methodologies such as co‐design, an approach capable of bridging multiple expertise. The core activities of co‐design are based on the premise of collaboration and on developing creative social environments. Yet achieving collaboration through co‐design is challenging as people need to understand each other, and develop trust and rapport. We argue that ‘informal‐mutual learning’ is central to building mutual understanding. This article explores how we create spaces for collaboration through co‐design by examining the social environments supporting them. It examines the value of collaboration and its impact upon participants within an action research project conducted in Scotland. We identified Cultural‐Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a suitable theoretical framework. It offers support for holistic inquiry into participation and learning. Its strength was in the attention that it pays to multi‐dimensional human interactions within the social environment. This led to an understanding of the concepts of boundary‐crossing and boundary space examined through a CHAT lens. The findings shed light on four designerly conditions supporting informal‐mutual learning when engaged in collaboration during co‐design situations: choreography and orchestration, aesthetics, playfulness, and quality and quantity of participation. The findings enable us to elaborate on the theorisation of boundary space, a theoretical space for the assemblage of multiple levels of expertise to achieve collaboration.

The main focus of this article is our project of reimagining higher education for ourselves and our students using the central theme of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), which is inextricably linked to education in the present and in the future in many contexts. We argue that interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary working are central and essential features of TEL and, yet, they are largely invisible in the TEL literature. TEL itself is still largely invisible in the sociology of education literature and, hence, suffers ‘dual invisibility’. We suggest that this may be connected to the crisis that has beset TEL research and pedagogy. We examine the power of theory in TEL work, citing the use of cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT) in our own TEL work. A detailed account of an interdisciplinary, theory-informed TEL project is provided, and this is analysed to explore how the weave between disciplines, particularly art and design, and education, and interdisciplinary project working can be mutually beneficial in our project of reimagining higher education for work and study.

The research presented in this article strives to answer the question: how do we educate for sustainability? I have provided evidence that arts-based educational research methods and major cultural resources provide very rich learning experiences that extend across disciplinary boundaries and can be crafted into pedagogical practices that help orientate learners of all levels to issues of sustainability. The article addresses the challenge of developing pedagogies for socio-ecological sustainability across disciplines in higher education. I present three kinds of conceptual resources in support of this project: theoretical influences that provide a range of lenses through which I can focus on my research concerns and pedagogical developments; methodological innovations – the use of the Dérive combined with a narrative record; and real-world aesthetic resources derived from gallery visits, an architectural exploration and interactive, scientific visits to major botanical gardens in Europe. I also briefly outline the importance of research resources derived from my own interdisciplinary work in virtual worlds - technology enhanced learning (TEL). These resources have led to a fusion of ideas from my own empirical research and personal experiences and observations in the real world. The most significant outcome of my Dérive experiences is a reminder of the power of aesthetic and emotional responses in learning activities. The blending of digital and analogue conceptual resources has synergised my thinking about pedagogies of sustainability, and increased my understanding of the importance of engagement with the real world, the role of emotion in learning and the power of experiential learning. I argue that personal and collective responses to artwork can act synergistically, and that community learning and individual learning are linked in informal settings, as evidenced by the Dérives presented in this article.

The dialectical relationship between social justice, active participation and the development of aesthetic sensibilities is re-emerging as a theme among art and design educators as concerns mount for the future of art and design education in the curriculum – particularly in the UK, but also internationally. This article explores the potential of virtual worlds to support the development of young people's voices using creative practices – photography, film-making and fashion – as the principal means of engaging young people in developing their understanding of active citizenship. The use of creative practices to support a range of wider educational aims in virtual worlds has not yet been investigated and, we contend, is an area of serious research endeavour. We report on the research of an EPSRC/ESRC-funded project called ‘Inter-Life’ which examined how virtual worlds could be used to support the development and acquisition of life skills to enhance the management of important life transitions. The project investigated the extent to which young people's engagement in creative practices within these environments assisted with these processes. Some implications for future research are outlined.

The aim of the Inter-Life Project was to investigate the use of virtual worlds and creative practices to support the acquisition of transition skills for young people to enhance their management of important life events. In particular, the authors have been investigating the role of the Inter-Life virtual worlds in supporting the development of life transition skills in young people, some of whom were in the care of local authorities. Creative practices, such as photography, digital storytelling and filmmaking, were used as a vehicle to enable young people to access and develop new personal and shared narratives as they worked together with researchers over an extended period on ‘Inter-Life Island’. The Inter-Life Project created an embryonic virtual social research laboratory in order to study how young people can use a virtual world creatively, working together as a research community to develop skills that will help them navigate their key life transitions. The project focuses on how participants act and develop in Inter-Life, while engaged in co-designed creative and research activities. It also examines how the skills and understandings that were developed through a range of creative practices map onto their real-world experience. The project environments (based upon the commercial platform ‘Second Life’) incorporate ‘in-world’ data-gathering tools (as distinct from the ‘transition tools' created for the participants' use) that support content analysis. Such data enable the analysis of complex activities in the virtual world using activity theory as a theoretical perspective. The skills acquired and the development of identities as young people engage in shared activities are reported and analysed. The article concludes by assessing the potential of augmented 3D digital technologies to assist young people in the social and emotional challenges of transition in their lives. It also considers the potential of 3D environments to support student transitions in higher education, with particular reference to art and design education.