1,721,002 research outputs found

    Introduction : Digitalisation of education in the era of algorithms, automation and artificial intelligence

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    The World Yearbook of Education 2024 contends with the digitalisation and datafication of education associated with the arrival of big data, algorithms, AI and automated digital technologies. Contemporary digitalisation and datafication in education have emerged from five intertwined trends: the production of shared imaginaries of a digital future, the emergence of educational data science as a model of knowledge production, a political turn to data-driven policy and governance, transformations in the digital data economy, and the rapid growth of the edtech industry. The chapters foreground four analytical approaches as an agenda for research on digitalisation and datafication in education. Focusing on sociotechnical foundations, research interrogates the social, scientific and historical factors involved in the development and deployment of new technologies and practices. Research on the political economy of digitalisation foregrounds the complex relations between locally enacted forms of digitalisation and global economic trends in the technology industry. The dynamics of digitalisation and datafication underpin the ways contemporary education systems can be monitored, controlled and governed, such as through digital surveillance techniques and automated data-driven decision-making. In turn, research investigates consequences like bias and discrimination, inequality and environmental impact, and explores alternative models like technical democracy and design justice approaches

    Introduction:Digitalisation of education in the era of algorithms, automation and artificial intelligence

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    The World Yearbook of Education 2024 contends with the digitalisation and datafication of education associated with the arrival of big data, algorithms, AI and automated digital technologies. Contemporary digitalisation and datafication in education have emerged from five intertwined trends: the production of shared imaginaries of a digital future, the emergence of educational data science as a model of knowledge production, a political turn to data-driven policy and governance, transformations in the digital data economy, and the rapid growth of the edtech industry. The chapters foreground four analytical approaches as an agenda for research on digitalisation and datafication in education. Focusing on sociotechnical foundations, research interrogates the social, scientific and historical factors involved in the development and deployment of new technologies and practices. Research on the political economy of digitalisation foregrounds the complex relations between locally enacted forms of digitalisation and global economic trends in the technology industry. The dynamics of digitalisation and datafication underpin the ways contemporary education systems can be monitored, controlled and governed, such as through digital surveillance techniques and automated data-driven decision-making. In turn, research investigates consequences like bias and discrimination, inequality and environmental impact, and explores alternative models like technical democracy and design justice approaches.</p

    The illusion of meritocracy and the audacity of elitism: expanding the evaluative space in education

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    In the global context of increasing inequalities between advantaged and disadvantaged social groups, the role of education in achieving social justice has taken on new importance. In this chapter we consider two widely acclaimed books on social inequality, namely: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century (2014) and Daniel Dorling’s Injustice: Why Inequality Persists (2010). We specifically focus on how the authors relate problems of social inequality with educational disadvantage, naming the relation in terms of meritocracy and elitism. We suggest that in the main, Piketty and Dorling hold to distributive accounts of educational disadvantage and to an income/wealth-based evaluation of social inequality. We also argue that the informational basis of Piketty’s and Dorling’s evaluation excludes an appreciation of social justice as ‘recognition’ and thus excludes the importance of ‘epistemological equity’ and of ‘agency freedom’ in pursuing social justice in educational contexts, particularly in higher education. It is through these two foci on recognitive justice that we augment Piketty’s and Dorling’s distributive account

    Policy and Inequality in Education

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    This book is an edited collection introducing the Education Policy and Social Inequality series, and presents chapters from authors on the editorial board. It investigates relations between educational policy and social inequality, not simply in terms of policy solutions for inequalities but also how education policy frames, creates and at times exacerbates social inequalities. It adopts a critical stance, encompassing innovative and interdisciplinary theoretical and conceptual studies – drawing on e.g. sociology, cultural studies, social and cultural geography, and history – as well as original empirical work that examines a range of educational contexts, including early years education, vocational and further education, informal education, K-12 schooling and higher education. The book argues that critique and policy studies can have a transformative function, positing new dimensions for understanding the role of education policy in connection with recurrent social problems and seeking the amelioration of social inequality in ways that challenge the possibility of equity in the liberal democratic state, as well as in other forms of governance and government

    Interest-divergence and the colour of cutbacks: race, recession and the undeclared war on Black children

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    Drawing on Critical Race Theory (CRT), and illustrating with examples from the English system, the paper addresses the hidden racist dimension to contemporary education reforms and argues that this is a predictable and recurrent theme at times of economic crisis. Derrick Bell’s concept of ‘interest-convergence’ argues that moments of racial progress are won when White power-holders perceive self-interest in accommodating the demands of minoritized groups; such moments are unusual, and often short-lived. Presently we are witnessing the reverse of this process; a period of pronounced interest-divergence, when White power-holders imagine that a direct advantage will accrue from the further exclusion and oppression of Black groups in society. Behind rhetoric that proclaims the need to improve educational standards for all, and celebrates a commitment to closing the existing achievement gaps, in reality education reforms are being enacted that systematically disadvantage Black students and demonstrably widen educational inequalities
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