Search

This paper outlines how ideas of 'degrowth' might be used to reimagine sustainable forms of education technology. In essence, degrowth calls for a proactive renewal of technology use around goals of voluntary simplicity and slowing-down, community-based coproduction and sharing, alongside conscious minimalization of resource consumption. The paper considers how core degrowth principles of conviviality, commoning, autonomy and care have been used to develop various forms of 'radically sustainable computing'. The paper then suggests four ways in which degrowth principles might frame future thinking around education technology in terms of: (i) curtailing current manipulative forms of education technology, (ii) bolstering existing convivial forms of education technology; (iii) stimulating the development of new convivial education technologies; and (iv) developing digital technologies to achieve the eventual de-schooling of society. It is concluded that mobilisation of these ideas might support a much-needed reorientation of digital technology in education along low-impact, equitable lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of digital technologies within schools is leading to the increased generation, processing and circulation of data relating to students. To date, academic research around this 'datafication' of schools and schooling has tended to focus on institutional issues of governance and commercialisation, with relatively little consideration of students' experiences. Drawing on focus group discussions with 62 students across three Australian secondary schools, the paper explores students' experiences of school datafication in terms of power, surveillance and affect. It highlights students' relatively constrained and distanced relations with school technology use, schools' use of data to enforce student accountability and self-regulation of behaviour, as well students' perceived powerlessness to engage agentically in digital practices. Drawing on notions of 'digital resignation' and 'surveillance realism', the paper concludes by considering the extent to which students might be supported to meaningfully engage with (and possibly resist) the constraining 'atmospheres' of datafication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines digital data use within three Australian secondary schools, drawing on in-depth interviews with 50 school staff to explore tensions between: (i) established logics of "data-driven" schooling; and (ii) emerging "datafied" practices associated with digital systems, platforms and devices. Using sociological theorisation of institutional logics, the article examines how promises of digital "dataism" are thwarted by the entrenched temporal organisation of schooling, and teacher-centred understandings of students as coerced subjects. As such, prevailing logics of state bureaucracy and professionalism combine in ways that temper the prospect of individualism, self-regulation, continuous feedback, and other implicit promises of digital data. The paper considers the extent to which school data logics can endure amid the increased digitisation of K-12 education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how facial recognition technology is coming to find a place in contemporary schooling. Drawing on the 'script analysis' approach from the field of Science and Technology Studies, the paper examines the development of a facial recognition-based classroom recognition system by an Australian start-up company – 'AutoRoll'. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary data, the paper details the ongoing negotiations and mechanisms of adjustment between start-up founders, developers, marketers, policy and education actors as this socio-technical object progresses through successive phases of scripting, deinscripting and rescripting. These accounts illustrate how an initially contested technology enters a local educational system and begins to be sold to schools. In particular, the paper considers the ways in which a spirit of tech industry 'solutionism' is used to manufacture trust and legitimacy in the face of the disjointed governance and limited oversight of ed-tech by government and other public agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the significance of schools' data infrastructures as a site of institutional power and (re)configuration. Using 'infrastructure studies' as a theoretical framework and drawing on in-depth studies of three contrasting Australian secondary schools, the paper takes a holistic look at schools' data infrastructures. In contrast to the notion of the 'platformatised' school, the paper details the ad hoc and compromised ways that these school data infrastructures have developed – highlighting a number of underlying sociotechnical conditions that lead to an ongoing process of data infrastructuring. These include issues of limited technical interoperability and differences between educational requirements and commercially-led designs. Also apparent is the disjuncture between the imagined benefits of institutional data use and the ongoing maintenance and repair required to make the infrastructures function. Taking an institutional perspective, the paper explores why digital technologies continue to complicate (rather than simplify) school processes and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the subjectivation of students in light of the increasing amounts of digital data that are now being produced within schools. Taking a lead from critical data studies and the sociology of numbers, the paper draws on staff interviews in three Australian secondary schools to explore the various types of student data being generated, and the forms of student subjectivities that result. In particular, the paper contrasts the 'holistic' possibilities that some school leaders and administrators ascribe to data in terms of expanding the capacity to 'know' students, against the limited ways that data is actually being used within the schools. Most notably, the paper details how digital data appears to be configured within schools' official data procedures and practices to build student subjectivities and position students in narrow terms of performance and attendance. The paper also highlights how teachers make practical use of these limited data 'profiles' in a relational manner – as a way of stimulating dialogue with students to know them better, rather than a source of precise calculation. In this sense, the paper considers how 'data' might be reframed in educational discourse as a practical starting-point for teacher inquiry and professional judgment rather than an imagined source of all-encompassing knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the child is evoked in the discursive construction of facial recognition technology. Facial recognition technology is one of the most socially contentious emerging technologies of recent years, heavily criticised for enabling racialized and other forms of social harms. Drawing on data gathered through facial recognition tradeshow ethnographies, and interviews with members of the biometrics industry, we explore how the biometric monitoring of children has gained a prominent place in the industry's promotion of facial recognition technology as a mode of 'careful' surveillance. At the same time, however, the fast-changing face of the growing child is acknowledged as a difficult technical challenge to the efficient development and use of this technology. We argue that in these industry discourses the child is figured as both innocent and recalcitrant, and that the facial recognition industry has productively exploited the tension between these two figurations to legitimate and expand its own enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational researchers are showing a growing interest in Participatory Design (PD) and other collaborative co-design approaches. This paper considers the ways in which education researchers considering PD can benefit from drawing on the approach's heritage in the 1970s' Scandinavian 'cooperative inquiry' tradition. In particular, the paper highlights four core principles from the Scandinavian tradition, i.e.: the pursuit of socio-ethical outcomes, sustained consideration of what constitutes 'participation' and 'practice', and PD as a design process. While positioning these principles in school-based research is not easy, the paper considers how this has been achieved within the field of child-computer-interaction – an area of research that is also often conducted with children in educational institutions. While remaining mindful of the institutional constraints of school-based research, we argue that these Scandinavian principles can be borrowed and built upon by educational researchers – thereby extending the scope and ambitions of educational PD research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools now face considerable pressure to be using educational data to inform decision-making and become more efficient. Key to this rise of the 'data-driven' school is the increased use of digital technologies – with computer-based data processing fuelling hopes for the technology-driven 'smart schooling' and a general 'datafication' of education. Against this background, the present paper explores the realities how data-work is taking place within individual schools with the aid of digital technologies. In particular, it draws on empirical data generated from in-depth ethnographic studies of digital data practices within three secondary schools in the Australian state of Victoria. Using concepts from the sociology of numbers, the paper takers these empirical findings to develop productive and relational accounts of the predominant ways that data work was being carried out within these schools. In contrast to the idea of 'Big Data', schools were most often found to be engaging in small-scale, improvised forms of spreadsheet work. The paper considers the social, cultural and political reasons underpinning schools' reliance on such forms of 'small data' – particularly in contrast to the more sophisticated, automated and continuous forms of data analysis that are now available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past 20 years have seen the steady 'datafication' of school systems – i.e. the rendering of key aspects of school practice into data that is digitally collected, processed and circulated. In contrast to assumptions of 'data-driven' schools as sites of more efficient and automated forms of data work, this paper examines the extensive human labour that now supports data production within schools. Drawing on in-depth interview data generated within three Australian secondary schools, the paper explores three distinct stages of data production involving the increased labour of teachers, school leaders, administrative and technical staff, parents and students. These findings highlight how the production of digital data within schools is associated with heightened levels of human labour – from formally recognised activities to less visible infrastructural maintenance and 'repair' work. The paper concludes by discussing how 'school data' corresponds with broader tensions relating to school working conditions, occupational cultures, employment relations and worker organisation. Rather than being a source of more efficient and machine-led work with data, the increased prevalence of digital data seems to perpetuate some of the less desirable features of schools as workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing 'datafication' of contemporary society has a number of implications for schools and schooling. One is the increasing calls for schools to help develop young people's understandings about the role that digital data now plays in their everyday lives – especially in terms of the 'data economy' and 'surveillance capitalism'. Reporting on three research projects, we explore the challenges of doing 'critical data education' in schools with young people. Each project was based on three learning objectives: materialising data and data processing; understanding the implications of data processing; and trialling strategies and tactics to manage and protect personal data. Our findings highlight technological, ethical and social issues encountered and the need for data education programmes to articulate with young people's expectations for media use. The paper concludes by considering how this might be achieved in schools through re-imaging the dominant forms of digital 'cybersafety' education in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Applied AI, or 'machine learning', methods such as neural networks are used to train computers to perform tasks without human intervention. In this article, we question the applicability of these methods to education. In particular, we consider a case of recent attempts from data scientists to add AI elements to a handful of online learning environments, such as Khan Academy and the ASSISTments intelligent tutoring system. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS), we provide a detailed examination of the scholarly work carried out by several data scientists around the use of 'deep learning' to predict aspects of educational performance. This approach draws attention to relations between various (problematic) units of analysis: flawed data, partially incomprehensible computational methods, narrow forms of educational' knowledge baked into the online environments, and a reductionist discourse of data science with evident economic ramifications. These relations can be framed ethnographically as a 'controversy' that casts doubts on AI as an objective scientific endeavour, whilst illuminating the confusions, the disagreements and the economic interests that surround its implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facial recognition technology is now being introduced across various aspects of public life. This includes the burgeoning integration of facial recognition and facial detection into compulsory schooling to address issues such as campus security, automated registration and student emotion detection. So far, these technologies have largely been seen as routine additions to school systems with already extensive cultures of monitoring and surveillance. While critical commentators are beginning to question the pedagogical limitations of facially driven learning, other this article contends that school-based facial recognition presents a number of other social challenges and concerns that merit specific attention. This includes the likelihood of facial recognition technology altering the nature of schools and schooling along divisive, authoritarian and oppressive lines. Against this background, the article considers whether or not a valid case can ever be made for allowing this form of technology in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common recommendation in critiques of datafication in education is for greater conversation between the two sides of the (critical) divide – what might be characterised as sceptical social scientists and (supposedly) more technically-minded and enthusiastic data scientists. This article takes the form of a dialogue between two academics representing these different perspectives – Dragan Gasevic (a data scientist who is one of the founders of the 'learning analytics' field) and Neil Selwyn (a social scientist and long-time critic of educational technology). Over the course of a six-month email exchange, we explore various arguments for and against the datafication of higher education. Thus, we are able to add a computational dimension to well-worn social criticisms of data representativeness, reductionism and injustice, as well as exploring social tensions inherent in technical claims to data-based precision, clarity and predictability. Crucially, these exchanges allow us to explore ways in which our two viewpoints converge, and therefore highlight opportunities for productive inter-disciplinary exchange and collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses the various articles published within the issue on topics like educational technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning.

This article addresses the deliberately speculative question of 'What might the school of 2030 be like?', with a specific focus on the influences of digital technologies. The article adopts the methodological approach of 'social science fiction' to explore the ways in which digital technologies might be used in one Australian high school in 2030 (Lakeside), and what this might mean for the people whose lives are enmeshed with these technologies. Through the co-construction of five social science fiction 'vignettes' about life within Lakeside, the article considers the increasing prevalence of dataveillance, digital deskilling and the de-territorialization of schooling. The article then goes on to consider changing relationships between time/place, material and coded structures, as well as the increasingly platformized and data-driven nature of schooling in the 2020s. The article ends by considering the ways in which critical scholars can continue to use the methodological approach of social science fiction writing with regard to unpacking the politics of digital education futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education policy increasingly takes place across borders and sectors, involving a variety of both human and nonhuman actors. This comparative policy paper traces the 'policy mobilities,' 'fast policy' processes and distributed 'policy assemblages' that have led to the introduction of new computer programming practices into schools and curricula in England, Sweden and Australia. Across the three contexts, government advisors and ministers, venture capital firms, think tanks and philanthropic foundations, non-profit organizations and commercial companies alike have promoted computer programming in schools according to a variety of purposes, aspirations, and commitments. This paper maps and traces the evolution of the organizational networks in each country in order to provide a comparative analysis of computing in schools as an exemplar of accelerated, transnationalizing policy mobility. The analysis demonstrates how computing in schools policy has been assembled through considerable effort to create alignments between diverse actors, the production and circulation of material objects, significant cross-border movement of ideas, people and devices, and the creation of strategic partnerships between government centres and commercial vendors. Computing in schools exemplifies how modern education policy and governance is accomplished through sprawling assemblages of actors, events, materials, money and technologies that move across social, governmental and geographical boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers growing calls for the integration of so-called 'maker technologies' and associated 'maker' practices into schools and other formal education settings. Moving on from the largely celebratory literature in this area, the article seeks to further explore the tensions between the educational potential of maker technology and the realities of its use in school and classroom contexts. In particular, the article focuses on fundamental – but so far little acknowledged – tensions surrounding the social, cultural, political contexts of maker education, alongside the epistemological and pedagogical characteristics of maker technologies as tools for learning. It is concluded that maker education must not be seen as a ready fit with formal schooling. Instead, teachers and schools are likely to require sustained support to make the most of maker technologies within the demands and constraints of contemporary school contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology is an expanding area of education policy. There is growing interest, therefore, in how networks of corporate and state policy actors implicit in the formation of (inter)national education technology agendas intersect with local school systems and teachers. In particular, this paper explores the significant policy work that takes place outside schools and classrooms through education trade shows. Based on an in-depth ‘event ethnography’ of one large Scandinavian educational technology show, the paper details how these events function as sites of policy interpretation - ‘sharing’ (or more accurately ‘selling’) global ideas and imperatives to local schools and teachers. These findings highlight the role of trade shows in consolidating policy networks, subsuming public education interests into corporate concerns, and differentiating teacher subjectivities and encouraging teacher entrepreneurship. The paper problematizes the ways in which teacher agency is shaped and controlled by the discursive, material and affective dimensions of such events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities generate a mass of data related to students and the courses that they study. As such, ‘data work’ using digital technologies and digital systems is integral to educational administration within higher education. Drawing on in-depth interviews with administrative and managerial staff in an Australian university, this article examines the data practices and processes that have grown up around students and courses. In particular, the article explores the ‘back-stage’ issues surrounding data – e.g. concerns and tensions associated with appropriate uses of data; the organisational cultures that form around the use of data; and the (un)intended consequences of data work. These findings point towards an implicit ‘black-boxing’ of data that shapes the generation and use of digital data in ways that are predominantly restricted and bounded. The article concludes by considering how these constrained forms of data use might be problematised and reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which digital technologies are now implicated in the work - and specifically the labour - of school teachers. Drawing upon qualitative studies in two Australian high schools, the paper examines the variety of ways in which teachers' work is now enacted and experienced along digital lines. In particular, the paper highlights the association of digital technologies with the standardization, evidencing, intensification and altered affect of teachers' work. The paper questions the extent to which these trends might be seen as constituting 'new' forms of labour, with the research data pointing to continuities and disjunctures in terms of teachers' autonomy and professionalization. The paper also considers how these conditions are experienced in different ways across the teaching workforce. The paper concludes by reflecting on how fairer and/or empowering working conditions might be achievable through alternate uses of digital technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital fabrication and '3D Making' are prominent recent additions to school curricula, hastened by the increased affordability of Computer Assisted Design software and devices such as 3D printers. It is increasingly argued that classroom use of these technologies can re-orientate schools towards forms of skills and knowledge appropriate for contemporary industry, STEM education and 'Maker culture'. Amidst such rhetoric, questions are raised about how these technologies are being used in schools, and the extent to which this represents 'new' and/or 'innovative' forms of education. This paper presents an ethnographic investigation of a 3D printing course enacted in an Australian high school. These curricular activities are considered from three different perspectives: (i) the artefacts and devices involved in the project; (ii) the surrounding social and educational contexts; and (iii) the activities and practices implicit in the implementation of the project. These different levels of analysis highlight the complexities of technology-based schooling -- not least the ways in which possible technical and/or pedagogical 'innovations' associated with 3D printing are shaped by the situational constraints of school contexts. The paper concludes by considering the likely future(s) of 3D printing and other forms of digital fabrication within the institutional confines of school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies are now an integral aspect of the university student experience. As such, academic research has understandably focused on the potential of various digital technologies to enable, extend and even ‘enhance’ student learning. This paper offers an alternate perspective on these issues by exploring students’ actual experiences of digital technology during their academic studies – highlighting the aspects of digital technology use that students themselves see as particularly helpful and/or useful. Drawing on a survey of 1658 undergraduate students, the paper identifies 11 distinct digital ‘benefits' – ranging from flexibilities of time and place, ease of organizing and managing study tasks through to the ability to replay and revisit teaching materials, and learn in more visual forms. While these data confirm digital technologies as central to the ways in which students experience their studies, they also suggest that digital technologies are not ‘transforming’ the nature of university teaching and learning. As such, university educators perhaps need to temper enthusiasms for whatmightbe achieved through technology-enabled learning and develop better understandings of the realities of students’ encounters with digital technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of theLearning, Media & Technologyseries on ‘Key Thinkers and Theoretical Traditions’, this paper explores the relevance of C. Wright Mills’ much lauded book ‘The Sociological Imagination’. The argument is made that we would do well to take heed of many of the central tenets of Mills’ call to arms for a historically aware, politically focused and carefully crafted social science. These include Mills’ concerns over the dominance of abstract empiricism, being beholden to the demands of ‘bureaucratic’ research agendas, a tendency towards psychologism and/or resorting to default explanations of the apparent failings of individuals and institutions in terms of a cultural/technological ‘lag’. The paper argues how Mills’ writing should inspire researchers to think beyond the realms of their own experiences, interests and passions, to look beyond the shallow allure of the latest ‘new’ technology, and to critically engage with the social, historical, biographical and political dimensions of education and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The past decade has seen the expansion of personal digital technologies into schools. With many students and teachers now possessing smartphones, tablets, and laptops, schools are initiating one-to-one and ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) policies aiming to make use of these ‘personal devices’ in classrooms. While often discussed in terms of possible educational benefits and/or organisational risks, the actual presence of personal devices in schools tends to be more mundane in nature and effect. Drawing upon ethnographic studies of three Australian high schools, this paper details ways in which the proliferation of digital devices has come to bear upon everyday experiences of school. In particular, the paper highlights the ways in which staff and students negotiate (in)appropriate technology engagement; the ordinary (rather than extraordinary) ways that students make use of their devices in classrooms; and the device-related tensions now beginning to arise in schools. Rather than constituting a radically ‘transformational’ form of schooling, the paper considers how the heightened presence of personal technologies is becoming subsumed into existing micro-politics of school organisation and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large quantities of data are now being generated, collated and processed within schools through computerised systems and other digital technologies. In response to growing concerns over the efficiency and equity of how these data are used, the concept of ‘open data’ has emerged as a potential means of using digital technology to democratise data access and use within whole school communities. Drawing on participatory design research in two Australian secondary schools, this paper explores the possibilities of making existing school data openly available in digitised form for teachers, administrators and students to access, interpret and use. The results of these interventions – while only partially successful – provide valuable insights into the technical, informatic, organisational and social issues surrounding the use of data in schools. The paper concludes by considering the practical and theoretical limitations of attempting to democratise data engagement within school settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies are now an integral feature of university study. As such, academic research has tended to concentrate on the potential of digital technologies to support, extend and even ‘enhance’ student learning. This paper, in contrast, explores the rather more messy realities of students’ engagements with digital technology. In particular, it focuses on the aspects of digital technology use that students see as notably unhelpful. Drawing on a survey of 1658 undergraduate students from two Australian universities, the paper highlights four distinct types of digital ‘downside’. These range from low-level annoyances and interruptions, to ways in which digital technologies are seen to diminish students’ scholarship and study. Against this background, the paper considers how discussions of digital technology might better balance enthusiasms for what we know might be achieved through technology-enabled learning, with the often unsatisfactory realities of students’ encounters with digital technology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses educational uses of digital technology. Topics discussed include increased use of active, deterministic descriptions of the core relationships between technology and education, the Ed-Tech Speak community of educators and role of language in improving the conditions of education and technology.

Schools are highly regulated sites of digital technology use. This article draws upon survey data from students (n = 1174) across three Australian secondary schools, examining their experiences and perceptions of school regulation of technology use, as well as the ways in which students accommodate and/or work around such constraints. The data highlight a number of different forms of regulation that students perceive as impeding their in-school engagement with technology - most notably relating to filtering/blocking of content; (dis)possession of personal devices; enforced uses and standardized practices. Conversely, a number of tactics of contestation are also highlighted - including surreptitious uses of digital media; low-level "hacks" and technical reconfigurations; and various other forms of subversion. The article concludes by considering the implications of these findings, and the need for school authorities to work with students to develop negotiated forms of regulation that support expansive and increasingly personalized uses of technology within the school context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces a series of papers on social media use in education published within the issue.

The much-discussed potential of ‘technology-enhanced learning’ is not always apparent in the day-to-day use of digital technology throughout higher education. Against this background, the present paper considers the digital devices and resources that students engage most frequently with during their university studies, what these technologies are being used for, and perceptions of ‘usefulness’ attached to these uses. The paper draws upon data gathered from a survey of undergraduate students (n = 1658) from two Australian universities. Having explored a variety of factors shaping student engagement with digital technology within these university settings, the paper considers how ongoing discussions about digital technology and higher education might better balance enthusiasms for the ‘state of the art’ (i.e. what we knowmightbe achieved through technology-enabled learning) with an acknowledgement of the ‘state of the actual’ (i.e. the realities of technology use within contemporary university contexts). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The generation and processing of data through digital technologies is an integral element of contemporary society, as reflected in recent debates over online data privacy, ‘Big Data’ and the rise of data mining and analytics in business, science and government. This paper outlines the significance of digital data within education, arguing for increased interest in the topic from educational researchers. Building on themes from the emerging sub-field of ‘digital sociology’, the paper outlines a number of ways in which digital data in education could be questioned along social lines. These include issues of data inequalities, the role of data in managerialist modes of organisation and control, the rise of so-called ‘dataveillance' and the reductionist nature of data-based representation. The paper concludes with a set of suggestions for future research and discussion, thus outlining the beginnings of a framework for the future critical study of digital data and education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issues on topics including digital technology, higher education and communication in education.

During the past 15 years of his career, John Furlong’s research and writing has focused—in part—on digital technologies and people’s everyday experiences of education. While hardly a technology expert, his work has shown an acute awareness of the significance of computers, the internet and mobile telephony in making sociological sense of education. This paper contrasts the limited visibility of such issues within the sociology of education over the past 30 years with how the present situation appears to be improving during the 2010s. The paper also identifies opportunities for future work that engages more in the co-production, development and design of new forms of educational technology. As such it is concluded that a future sociology of education and technology needs to be developed that acts not only against, but also in and beyond, the dominant field of education technology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, schools micro-computing in the UK developed from being a niche ‘hobbyist’ activity to a prominent, officially mandated element of the national education system. Drawing on in-depth interviews with key actors of the time, this paper outlines the initial varied interpretations of schools micro-computing in the UK, identifying the social groups that were involved in pursuing these interpretations, and then considering which meanings and values gained dominance over others. This ‘social shaping’ analysis highlights the processes that underpinned the gradual stabilisation of the meaning(s) around the micro-computer in an educational context. The paper concludes by considering how the eventually dominant interpretations of schools micro-computing can be explained in terms of the technological frames of relevant social groups—not least the differing determinist assumptions of groups hoping to encourage the radical computer-led transformation of schools and schooling, as opposed to those seeking the continuation of established interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An editorial is presented in which the author explains that all articles that are submitted to the publication must answer the question "So what?" Topics discussed include the challenges that come along with academic writing and publishing, the global growth in interest in education, technology, and media research, and the ties between academic articles and educational practices and policies.

This paper examines the emergence of schools ‘micro-computing’ in the UK between 1977 and 1984 – a period of significant educational, technological and political change. During this time, computing developed rapidly from a niche activity in a few select schools to the state subsidized purchasing of a ‘computer in every school’ and the nationwide promotion of computers as a feature of curriculum and pedagogy. Through a series of in-depth retrospective interviews with key policy actors (n=20) this paper develops a detailed ‘policy historiography’ of this period - shedding light on the complex power relations and interests that underpinned these developments. In particular, the paper highlights the origins of these policy interventions in earlier activities, and examines the negotiations and conflicts between and within the two government departments involved in the mass introduction of computing into the UK school system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While it is generally acknowledged that being ‘historically informed’ lies at the heart of critical accounts of education policy-making, the use of historically focused retrospective research methods within the field is rare. This paper makes the case for retrospective research at a time when some of the most significant episodes of post-war educational policy-making are fast passing into the realms of not-so-recent history. In particular, it is argued that current policy scholars now have an opportunity to revisit the issues and concerns regarding the formation of the ‘New Right’ education policy reforms 30 years ago. Drawing on the experiences of a recently completed study of educational policy-making during the 1979–1983 Thatcher administration, it is argued that retrospective methods offer a surprisingly rich opportunity to collect primary data from the policy elites of the 1980s. It is concluded that the time is right for the production of a useful addendum to the founding studies of educational policy sociology that were conducted at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the results of multi-variate analyses of the social, economic and educational characteristics associated with reporting both access to the Internet and using the Internet for four key purposes: banking and finance, purchasing goods or services, accessing government or official services and looking for work or employment. The research was conducted using nationally representative, individual-level, repeated cross-sectional data (n = 47,001) collected in annual surveys in the UK between 2002 and 2010. The results of the analyses show that although Internet access and use have increased over the period studied, both continue to be structured according to occupational class, educational background and, to some extent, age. The sex and ethnicity of respondents had little impact on the probability of reporting Internet access and were only strongly related to using the Internet for purchasing goods or services. Additionally, the presence of children in a household was unimportant in relation to both Internet access or use. While the findings differ slightly from previous studies they confirm that both Internet access and use remain structured along socio-economic and educational lines that work against already disadvantaged groups. This has remained the case in the UK throughout the 2000s despite considerable technological change and policy interventions specifically targeting marginalized sections of society. The paper concludes that policy interventions aimed at both increasing and widening Internet access and use will be ineffective unless the social, rather than technological, basis of inequalities in access and use are recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author reflects on moving out from educational technology bubble. He says that educational technology suffer from lack of rigorous and sustained inter-disciplinary exchange. He has a suspicion that some academic educational technologists are happy to perpetuate the situation of being technologically distinct. He adds that the popularization and democratization of educational technology and media needs to be better foregrounded.

Covering a decade during which the “digital divide” came to popular and political attention, and written at a time when the Internet continues to be championed as a means of widening access to educational opportunities, this paper presents an analysis of the social, economic and educational characteristics associated with using the Internet for educational purposes. The research was conducted using nationally-representative, individual-level, repeated cross-sectional data (n = 47,001) collected in annual surveys of adults in the UK between 2002 and 2010. The results of multivariate analyses show that although there was a substantial increase in both Internet access and non-educational use of the Internet during this period, there was comparatively little growth in “educational” Internet use. As with participation in adult learning more generally, educational Internet use was structured by age, occupational class and educational engagement. The growth in the availability of Internet access and the development of new technologies appears to have neither increased nor widened participation in adult learning. This growth does not appear to have impacted on the social characteristics of those who use the Internet for educational purposes, nor led to any substantial uptake in Internet-based learning among already educationally-active groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses various ways to increase use of digital technologies in the academic researches. It refers to the importance of awareness of global, national and local contexts of education and technological developments. It also highlights the need for academic researchers to get involved in work that aims to make a difference in usage of digital technologies in academic institutions.

This paper considers the contribution of sociological theory to the academic study of young people, education and digital technology. First it discusses the shortcomings of the technological and socially determinist views of technology and education that prevail in current academic and policy discussions. Against this background the paper outlines the benefits of a number of different sociological perspectives on the social shaping of technology that, despite their popularity in other areas of science and technology studies, have been employed rarely in analyses of educational technology. In particular the paper outlines the provenance of theoretical approaches such as the social construction of technology, studies of domestication of digital technologies, feminist critical theory and the political economy of technology. Drawing on all these theoretical traditions the scene is then set for future empirical and theoretical examinations of young people’s use of digital technology in formal and informal educational settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools have long made use of digital technologies to support the co-ordination of management and administrative processes – not least ‘management information systems’, ‘virtual learning environments’ and other ‘institutional technologies’. The last five years have seen the convergence of these technologies into integrated rather than separate systems – thereby allowing institutionally-related data, resources and other services to be accessed and used by school leaders, administrators, teachers, students and parents. Many commentators see the supposedly ‘open’ nature of these integrated systems as somehow democratising and decentralising the organisation of schools. However, this paper offers a detailed account of how the social relations of schools and schooling shape and bound the use of institutional technologies. Drawing on interview data from twelve ‘early adopting’ schools in England, the paper discusses how the implementation of integrated institutional technology systems is shaped by a set of organisational, bureaucratic and disciplinary concerns. In particular, the paper illustrates how these technologies strengthen existing ‘top down’ patterns of social power and control through a series of data-driven processes. The paper therefore considers how the systems are used to reinforce a wider ‘conservative modernisation’ of schools – intensifying the managerial control of curricula, the standardisation of labour processes and the accountability of educational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Schools’ use of digital technology has so far proved to be a peripheral feature of the Conservative-Liberal education agenda. Through a series of reductions to previously extensive bureaucratic and funding structures, the Coalition administration has presided over a swift but sustained withdrawal of state support for digital technology use in schools. Many commentators have been quick to decry these actions as signalling an ill-informed “absence of ambition” for what could be seen as an integral area of twenty-first century educational provision. However, this paper contends that the Coalition’s apparent technological indifference instead marks a deliberate “ambition of absence”. Thus as well as contributing to immediate reductions in central government spending, the apparent shunning of educational technology policy-making has been driven by the Coalition’s long-term ambitions for localised and largely privatised forms of public sector governance. With this in mind, the paper considers the intended influence of the Coalition’s policy reversals on the future use of digital technology in UK schools. It is suggested that rather than constituting an irreversible crisis, the current withdrawal of state support is perhaps best understood as a continuation of the fluctuating cycle of government (dis)interest in educational technology over the past 30 years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The concept of 'flexibility' lies at the heart of contemporary post-compulsory education. Educational institutions are now expected to take a flexible approach to their provision of courses, as well as staffing, curriculum and assessment arrangements. Similarly, individual learners are expected to take an increasingly pragmatic, adaptable and reflexive approach to their studies. While a number of academic critiques have focused on the implications of these shifts from the point of view of educational institutions and those who work within them, less attention has been paid to how individual learners encounter and act upon the presumed flexibilities of their educational engagement. This paper examines how notions of flexibility were present within the individual 'learner experience' of a varied sample of distance learners (n=60) from around the world, all taking UK-provided degree courses. Drawing on in-depth interview data, the paper highlights a set of recurring tensions between individual agency and social structure that appear to underpin the distance learner experience. In particular, the paper discusses how most learners managed to sustain only a limited 'strategic flexibility' towards their learning-especially in terms of negotiating issues of time, space, place and existing familial and employment roles. Moreover, the extent to which individuals were able to 'conduct' the nature of their studies appears to be influenced significantly by gender, lifestage and employment/occupational status. The paper therefore concludes by discussing the need to adjust academic and policy assumptions of the 'freedoms' of globalised distance education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the uses and non-uses of digital technology by international distance learners. It draws upon data from in-depth interviews with 60 learners from around the world following distance education degree courses provided by a large UK federal university. The article focuses firstly on learners' descriptions of technology's role in the processes and practices of their studying. The article then goes on to consider how the process of studying with technology fitted with learners' perceptions and understandings of distance learning and higher education in general - as well as temporal constraints of work and domestic commitments. The article concludes by considering how the ambivalences and contradictions that appear to characterise student (non)use of technology during their studies serve to reinforce, rather than overcome, a traditional didactic 'grammar' of university education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have been subject to much recent debate within the educational community. Whilst growing numbers of educators celebrate the potential of social networking to (re)engage learners with their studies, others fear that such applications compromise and disrupt young people's engagement with 'traditional' education provision. With these ongoing debates in mind, the current paper presents an in-depth qualitative analysis of the Facebook 'wall' activity of 909 undergraduate students in a UK university. Analysis of these data shows how much of students' education-related use of this social networking application was based around either the post-hoc critiquing of learning experiences and events, the exchange of logistical or factual information about teaching and assessment requirements, instances of supplication and moral support with regards to assessment or learning, or the promotion of oneself as academically incompetent and/or disengaged. With these themes in mind, the paper concludes that rather than necessarily enhancing or eroding students' 'front-stage' engagement with their formal studies, Facebook use must be seen as being situated within the 'identity politics' of being a student. In particular, Facebook appears to provide a ready space where the 'role conflict' that students often experience in their relationships with university work, teaching staff, academic conventions and expectations can be worked through in a relatively closed 'backstage' area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]