Many of our projects focus on the transformation of education governance, which includes political structures as well as new actor constellations that come along with the growing datafication and digitization of education and society.
Transformation of federal education governance, the role of data infrastructures as well as new intermediary actors
In the context of Heisenberg funding, we investigate the role that federally decentralized structures play in shaping or limiting educational digitization. A growing influence of national education authorities (e.g. digital pact in Germany) and centralized databases can be observed across federal states worldwide, which increasingly put under pressure subnational policy authority. In addition, processes of standardization, centralization and infrastructuralization are increasingly being driven by intermediary actors who operate between education policy, research, business and school practice and, thus, outside the traditional education policy arenas. For example, we co-edited a special issue on intermediaries in 2024. We also conducted a study on Estonia, which is commonly considered a global pioneer of digitization, and examined here the complex interplay between intermediary policy actors and data infrastructures.
The PhD thesis of Lucas Joecks „EdTech Consulting as a new form of governance in the German education system“ is equally situated within this context. More specifically, his work focuses on the queston how EdTech consultants as a new actor type can be conceptually framed, and which characteristics (e.g., rationales for action, governance effects, etc.) of these actors can be empirically identified.
Analysis of the EdTech sector
Through an extensive team ethnography, and together with colleagues from KU Leuven, we researched the EdTech startup sector. Specifically, the aim of this research was to systematize and empirically disentangle the diverse and also contradictory logics of the EdTech startup sector. To this end, the research group analyzed a multi-day European event that was specifically adressing startups in the education sector. The study generated highly relevant results, which can be read here. In addition to the content-related results, we also developed and prepared the method of hybrid team ethnography in the context of the study – in our case, researching the event with eight people and closely interlinking analog and digital research modes.
Analysis of learning technologies
With growing digitization, governing education through technology is increasingly penetrating educational institutions and hereby moves increasingly „closer“ to students and teachers (e.g. adaptive technologies, measurement of biosensorical data, artificial intelligence). At the same time, these technologies are never neutral; rather, their design always incorporates certain ideas and values (e.g. what is “successful” education, what is “good” learning, how users should ideally navigate the platform, etc.), which are then conveyed to teachers and students via user interfaces. In various smaller studies, we are researching such technologies with regard to their pedagogical inscriptions and governance effects, including the reading software Antolin, the school platform itslearning, or fobizz.
The critical examination of learning tools also plays a central role in our transfer initiative UNBLACK THE BOX as well as in the SMASCH project.
Letzte Änderung: 13. February 2025