The philosophical worldview of contextualism and the "functional contextualism" - as a philosophy of science - are interesting starting points for a discussion referring to key concepts and key issues in learning, education, media and culture. The paper outlines the relationship between contextualism and pragmatism and its use for a theory of teaching and learning. In doing so, it refers to different perspectives in order to understand the concept 'context'. By using practice theories (e.g. Reckwitz 2002), theories of social network analysis (e.g. Castells 1996) and systems theories (e.g. Luhmann 2008) I work on a conceptual framework to analyze practices and to interpret media use as a social practice for learning in different contexts. Key aspects of this framework are being illustrated by showing some empirical data from my PhD-thesis (a grounded theory study). My project is seeking to develop recommendations how formal and informal educational contexts can be connected for media education and to discuss the implications for media education in school.