Abstract
Since the end of the 20th century learning dispositions have become a phenomenon of increasing interest within many world education systems. A category of dispositions associated specifically with learning-to-learn, learning dispositions are regularly construed as so-called soft-skills within education. Yet they are also increasingly recognised as situational capabilities that support lifelong learning. Learning dispositions reflect certain processes and abilities within learning, for instance, being interested or being involved, important for the acquisition of knowledge or particular skills, such as reading or kicking a ball accurately; neither would be possible if a learner had no interest in reading or ball-play nor any capacity to pick a book up to read or inclination to find ball to kick. Furthermore, as process elements of learning, learning dispositions may be thought of as situated capabilities that a learner can draw upon and act within different settings and novel situations, provided that setting or situation afforded such agencies at that time. Therefore, learning dispositions condition and arise from interactions between the learning environment and individual – they are situated and transferrable both. As part of the individual and the social structure concurrently, learning dispositions provide avenues for the careful design of learning environments by teachers whose efforts are focused on supporting children learn to learn.