Date: November 2021
Location: Online
Educational datafication and automated decision-making: Concepts, tools, and encounters for technical democracy and data justice
This symposium explores the potential of ‘technical democracy’ (Callon, Lascoumes & Barthe, 2001) and ‘data justice’ (Dencik et al., 2019) for education policy and practice. As datafication and automation trends permeate the education sector, we highlight the urgent need for novel forms of collective experimentation and learning. Algorithms, data and artificial intelligence are increasingly embedded and questioned across educational systems: exam grading, student monitoring, learning analytics, school allocation. These technical innovations are rapidly reshaping educational policy networks and institutional formations. Yet, strategies to examine such educational change and controversies in democratic ways are still in nascent form. Our aim is for participants to learn a range of concepts, tools, and encounters to explore ‘hybrid forums’ (Callon et al., 2001) with heterogeneous groups – alongside ways to “trace the conceptual and empirical horizons of how social justice can be advanced in a datafied society” (Dencik et al., 2019, p. 880). The symposium offers participants a repertoire of vocabulary, resources, and ideas, to spark democracy and justice in their own education contexts.
Abstracts and slides from the symposium are available here.
