[2] His areas of research are: Carl Bereiter is one of the pioneers of Computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL).

In collaboration with Marlene Scardamalia, he introduced and developed the theory of "knowledge building".

Bereiter is one of the founders and leading researchers of the Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology, (IKIT).

[4] His educational contributions, along with those of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Michel Foucault, Howard Gardner, and others, are profiled in Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education.

This provoked a response by William Labov encapsulated in a much reprinted paper called "The logic of non-standard English.