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

This book unpacks key concepts and methods relevant for a critical and reflective framing of futures in postdigital education. The compiled chapters explore concepts and methods that have pertinence for contemporary debates about the emergence of data-driven education and scrutinize implicit or explicit ethical and normative implications. The book provides in-depth critical reflections and perspectives to engage and analyze data-driven education as an educational and cultural phenomenon. It focuses on the value-laden and ethical aspects reflected in educational imaginaries (discourses and practices) regarding emerging data-driven sociotechnical practices in education. The book is the result of scholarly exchanges between disciplines at a symposium held at VIA University College in Denmark in May 2022.

Anders Buch is head of research program and docent at VIA University College in Denmark. Previously he has served as professor in expert cultures at Aalborg University, Denmark, and associate professor at The Technical University of Denmark. He holds a masters degree in philosophy from Copenhagen University and a PhD in education from Roskilde University. His empirical research area is focused on technological expert cultures, professionalism and workplace learning, and his theoretical approach is primarily inspired by science & technology studies (STS), practice theory, and pragmatism. He has published articles and books on knowledge, learning, education, professionalism, and the professional development of engineers. Since 2016 he has served as editor-in-chief of Nordic Journal for Working Life Studies. Recently he has co-edited Question of Practice in Philosophy and the Social Sciences (Routledge 2019) with Theodore Schatzki, and Engineering, Social Sciences, and the Humanities: Have Their Conversations Come of Age? (Springer 2022) with Steen Hyldgaard Christensen. He is presently co-editing a volume of the Springer book-series Philosophy of Engineering and Technology (POET) with the title, Rethinking Engineering Professionalism through the Concept of Bildung. Ylva Lindberg is a full professor of Education, specialized in Language and Literature, at the School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University (JU) in Sweden. Her research covers French language literature, with a focus on transnational and translingual authorships in the intersection of cultural spaces, such as Sweden, France, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is the PI of the national Research Graduate School CuEEd-LL – Culturally Empowering Education through Language and Literature, financed by the Swedish Research Council, and in the Executive Committee of the Research Graduate School GRADE – Digitalization and Education, supported by the same financing body. Lindberg is also leading the strategic investment project LeaDMe – Learning, Digitalization, and Media (2018-2022), with the goal to create a knowledge platform across education and research with regards to digitalization. Teresa Cerratto Pargman is a full professor of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University (SU) in Sweden. She is also a member of the Executive Committee and Associate Director of Societal Outreach at Digital Futures. Her research is situated at the intersection of Education and Technology Studies and Human-computer interaction (HCI). It seeks to contribute to the study of the increasing digitalization of everyday practices and mainly to reflect on the opportunities and challenges that this process brings to the education sector. Teresa is the PI of the research project, Ethical and Legal Challenges in Relationship to AI-Driven Practices in Higher Education, funded by the Wallenberg’s Foundation and the project, Ethics and Values in educational data-driven practices: Conceptual, Methodological and Pragmatic Explorations, funded by the Swedish Research Council - Education Sciences program.