Chair: Barbara Schulte, University of Vienna, Austria
Local Chair: Andreas Vasilopoulos, University of Patras, Greece
The advent of digital technologies has had a profound impact on educational visions and practices, such as educational policies, management, and teaching/learning; as well as more generally on the social realities and practices of various users in a broad range of settings within the formal part of education and beyond. Perspectives on the role of the digital in shaping our lives can be located on a spectrum between utopian and dystopian approaches: On the one side, the digital – e.g. in the form of EdTech – has been associated with various remedial functions, for example improving educational efficiency, making information more accessible, and bridging geographical and social divides. On the other side, the digital has been fraught with all sorts of problematizations, for example reducing education/Bildung to cognitive learning processes, creating informational echo chambers and alternative facts, and surrendering education to the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
This working group adopts a broad approach to education, and locates education, in the sense of Bernstein's 'totally pedagogized society', both within the education system and within other pedagogical relations in society, such as between the state and its citizens, international organizations and their member states, producers and consumers, etc. As digitalization has been pervading these relations, it has also transformed the ways in which education can be envisioned and educational ideas have been put into practice. While new possibilities have emerged to allow for a pluralism of hitherto unheard or less pronounced voices, this diversification of educational processes and practices can also be characterized, perhaps provocatively, as being marked by fragmentation and a cacophony of ad-hoc educators.
Paper topics in this Working Group may address questions such as:
- How has the digital impacted on teacher-student relationships as well as classroom dynamics? What are the implications of digitalized forms of teaching and learning for the professional identities of teachers? How does the digital interact with educational policies and practices regarding delivery of educational services, and what are the consequences for educational quality, equity, and justice?
- Can digital developments, such as the rise of AI, replace certain forms of teaching and learning? How does this change our conception of what can and should be learned in the classroom?
- What is the relationship between digitally shaped identities (e.g. through social media) and education? How can we connect the digital and the physical world, offline and online realities? How are conceptions of digital (critical) literacy connected to time and space? What role can education play in an age of echo chambers and alternative facts?
- What is the potential of the digital for empowering individuals and groups, including less powerful and marginalized groups, such as youth, minorities, or people in the Global South? Can digital spaces be used for education across conventional boundaries, e.g. for processes of deliberation and participation?
- How does the digital, both in formal education and beyond, have the potential for more subtle manipulation and control? How can we deal with the thin line between monitoring and surveillance?