Framing Futures in Postdigital Education: Critical Concepts for Data-Driven Practices

This book unpacks key concepts and methods that are relevant for a critical and reflective framing of futures in postdigital education. The rich and often confusing terminology in the multidisciplinary field of digitalization and education tends to prevent conversations across disciplines and areas about core issues at stake in increasingly data-driven everyday practices, such as issues of ethics and values. The compiled chapters focus on concepts and methods that have pertinence for contemporary debates about the emergence of data-driven education. The chapters explore their implicit or explicit ethical and normative implications. The chapters provide in-depth critical reflections and perspectives for scholars in the field to engage and analyze data-driven education as an educational and cultural phenomenon.
This anthology thus focuses on the value-laden and ethical aspects reflected in educational imaginaries (discourses and practices) regarding emerging data-driven sociotechnical practices in education.
Claims about data-driven practices contributing to ensuring the quality and value of the learning experience raise a series of questions that warrant ethical considerations. Concerns have arisen in connection with inequalities, discrimination, algorithmic authority, accountability, and student well-being, as well as advisors' moral discomfort and violation of a professional, ethical code. This includes conceptual perspectives of marginalized and minoritized groups and issues closely related to intersectionality. Furthermore, questions of Bildung are re-articulated and manifested anew through evolving digital solutions, calling for critical perspectives on reproduction, transformation, and innovation in education. In this context, we argue that educational sciences need to pay attention to the values and the ethics associated with emerging sociotechnical imaginaries.
The book is the result of scholarly exchanges between disciplines at a symposium held at VIA University College in Denmark in May 2022. Contributors have singled out concepts and methods for an in-depth discussion on their meaning with regards to the overall theme.