| 1. |
- Büchner, Felix, et al.
(author)
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In/equalities in Digital Education Policy – Problem Representations from three World Regions
- 2022
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In: Digital Education Governance Beyond International Comparative Assessments complex histories, contested presents, and contingent futures, University of Edinburgh, UK, 25- 26. May 2022 (online).
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The interplay of digital practices and social, educational, and economic inequalities are increasingly discussed in contemporary research on media technologies and digital cultures (Richterich & Abend, 2019). This body of research focuses on different forms of ‘digital divides’ – inequalities between different social constellations concerning the access to, the usage of and the outcomes from the use of media technologies (van Dijk, 2020). These socio-digital inequalities (Helsper 2021) are often addressed as a ‘problem’ that societies should face to enable a more just and equal life for their members. However, a cross-country and multi-voiced perspective on how socio-digital inequalities are conceptualized in education governance is missing. We – an international research group with teams in Argentina, Botswana, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, and Sweden – therefore ask: how are socio-digital inequalities represented as a ‘problem’ in education governance around the world? For our contribution to the conference, we conducted an analysis of digital education policy documents in our respective contexts as part of the research project RED (‘Reconfigurations of educational In/Equalities in a Digital World’). With a focus on ‘problem representations’ (Bacchi 2012) in supranational, national, federal, municipal, and commercial policy documents we unpack and present differences and similarities of problem narratives to paint a multi-layered picture of contemporary digital education governance in relation to inequalities
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| 2. |
- Büchner, Felix, et al.
(author)
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Unpacking Socio-Digital Inequalities in Everyday Schooling through Ordinalization: Scenes from Swedish and German Classrooms.
- 2023
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In: European Conference on Educational Research, Glasgow, UK 22-25 August 2023.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Public education has increasingly become a domain for nations and supranational entities to push for digitalization, which is often accompanied with promissory visions aiming at improvements in terms of e.g. ensuring more equitable schooling through digital technologies and infrastructures (European Commisson 2020). However, digitalization also potentially reconfigures 'socio-digital inequalities' (Helsper 2021) in schools, which are "systematic differences between individuals from different backgrounds in the opportunities and abilities to translate digital engagement into benefits and avoid the harm that might result from engagement with ICTs". Following this line of argument, socio-digital inequalities play out and are reconfigured depending on the context as digital infrastructures, equipment, curricula, teaching/learning strategies and competences found in practice vary greatly among and within nations. This study aims to provide situated and local accounts of the unfolding of socio-digital inequalities in practice in two economically and technologically strongly positioned nations, Sweden and Germany. It therefore contributes to current discussion points in critical educational technology research, where the roles of educational platforms, algorithms, infrastructuring or datafication practices in relation to the re/production of inequality are increasingly questioned. Sweden and Germany both position themselves as technological and digital 'pioneers' in the European community of nations and consider digitalization as positive and a way to address inequalities (Ferrante et al. 2023 under review). However, how that might manifest in local practices differs, as the schooling landscapes vary greatly: In Sweden school digitalisation has unfolded as part of a marketization that includes free school choice and for-profit schools funded by the state that run alongside existing municipally run schools (Svallfors & Tyllström 2019). Educational technologies, platforms and software are generally procured but provided by commercial actors, similar to (data) infrastructures. Overall, this has led to increasing concerns about segregation and inequality despite generally well-resourced schools (Ljungqvist & Sonesson 2021). In Germany on the other hand, digitalization has traditionally been focused on privacy concerns and an orientation to open-source solutions, that are built rather than bought (Macgilchrist 2019). Even after German schools started inviting more commercial actors and their digital products in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the digitalization of schooling remains a slow procedure because of underfunding and the federal organization of the education system (Cone et al. 2021). Structurally, Germany has been criticised as having the most unequal education system in Europe, due to its tripartite school system that can block social mobility. Therefore, Sweden and Germany are rich contexts for this study to unpack the local and nuanced unfolding of socio-digital inequalities in practice. However, inequalities are difficult to grasp, and as previous research has highlighted, they are difficult to approach ethnographically (Emmerich und Hormel 2017). Therefore, socio-digital inequalities in this study are approached through Marion Fourcade's account of different 'classificatory judgements' (Fourcade 2016) which serves as guiding lens. According to Fourcade, classification processes have different qualities and can be understood as either cardinal, nominal or ordinal classifications. While cardinal classifications refer to the numeral value of things (and are of lesser importance in this study), nominal classifications aim at the essence of things in a horizontal distinction and ordinal classifications refer to the value of things in a vertical, hierarchical distinction. With the help of this conceptual framing, everyday school practices could be observed and analysed in ethnographic field research, especially with regard to which 'differences' (in the sense of nominalisation) they produce between actors and which 'inequalities' (in the sense of ordinalization) result from them. Accordingly, this paper asks firstly how digital technology is encountered in Swedish and German school practice and secondly how such practices relate to re/productions of socio-digital inequalities.
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| 3. |
- Ferrante, Patricia, et al.
(author)
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In/equalities in digital education policy – sociotechnical imaginaries from three world regions
- 2024
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In: Learning, Media & Technology. - 1743-9884 .- 1743-9892. ; 49:1, s. 122-132
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The interplay of digital technologies and inequalities are increasingly discussed in contemporary research, mostly focusing on different forms of digital divides and often addressed as a ‘problem’ that societies should face. Hence, digital education and its governance becomes a major arena for addressing inequalities. In this paper, we offer a cross-country and multi-voiced perspective on how socio-digital inequalities are problematized in digital education policy in three world regions – Latin America, Africa and Europe – studying cases through policy documents in Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Botswana, Germany and Sweden. Our analysis shows how differences and similarities between digital education policy are rooted in various sociotechnical imaginaries that go beyond the national as they are highly situated in spatial–temporal contexts and rooted in historical trajectories. Our contribution aims at a further exploration of the entanglements of educational technology and in/equalities through global conditions and local (hi)stories.
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| 4. |
- Hillman, Thomas, 1978, et al.
(author)
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Inequality, the production of difference, and local school platforms in a global digital world
- 2023
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In: American Educational Research Association. Annual Meeting Program. - 0163-9676.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Digital platforms are increasingly present in schools around the world, though the ways in which they are present are far from universal. In this study, we argue that different platforms and the practices that are occasioned through their use may reflect and/or reinforce inequalities between and within different school contexts. This argument is made following the claim made by, amongst others, Light, Burgess and Duguay (2018) that software are cultural goods that express visions about ideal users and uses. With this claim as an orientation, and drawing on Fourcade’s (2016) notion of classificatory situations, we examine local school platforms used in five different countries to identify ways in which local digital infrastructures in schools are entangled with educational inequalities.
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