Conference Agenda

The notion of diversity is widely, if not only, received as a positive value, as a marker and driver for societal and cultural change. In this understanding, it refers to socio-political aspects such as „ethnicity, disability, gender and sexuality, […] and intersectionality“ (cf. the call to ECER 2023). The symposium is rather investigating problematic aspects of diversity in reference to various dimensions of what we understand as „educational capitalism“ (Peters 2012) and its (digital and other) technologies of knowledge production and learning.

In the context of current capitalist relations in general, 'diversity' has long since developed into a marketable slogan and, in the form of "diversity management," has been customized as a technology of corporate management (Krell 2015). In the political arena, such a logic of diversity, compatible with capital relations, corresponds to a dominant liberal anti-racism that - cynically speaking - resigns itself to the equal exploitation of all (Roldán Mendívil & Sarbo 2022: 34). More recently, extended versions bundling diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) (Owyoung 2022) have entered the scene.

However, even more generally, the capitalist market promises a diversity of product range and thus a customized, identity-awarding consumption experience. This is contrasted with capitalism's tendency toward monopolization and thus a collapse of diversity among market participants. This movement is abundantly clear in the global market of large tech corporations: a few corporations incorporate the external diversity of the market and transform it into an internal 'diversity' by buying up start-ups and competing companies.

Similarly, these digital capitalist actors are pushing into the educational technology sector, seeking to install mono-cultures of digital infrastructures of teaching and learning (Dander, Hug, Sander & Shanks 2021). At the same time, their products – learning applications, platforms, environments etc. – promise to be adaptive to individual learners, or even to be ‚learning‘ themselves. Alike, systems like these are claimed to, as ‚instruments‘ or ‚tools‘,contribute to equitable learning in an age of heterogeneity and diversity. At the same time, attributed difference of learners is being naturalized and individualized. In this manner the societal dimension of ‚doing diversity‘ is rendered invisible (Stoltenhoff 2022).

While these systems are proclaimed to offer learners a wide diversity of educational materials and media, the understanding of learning that is being hard-wired within the systems, mostly represents instrumental concepts of learning and educational technology (e.g. Seemann et al. 2022). Similarly, educational policy making, funding structures, and uncritical research in the field of educational technology largely follow such concepts that are, at best, ignorant of capitalist modes of colonization (Braun et al. 2021).

To work towards a diversification of scholarly knowledge and political practices in the field between capitalism, education, digital technologies, and diversity in its widest sense, the symposium addresses the following questions, from theoretical and empirical perspectives with contributions from Austria, Germany, Italy and Scotland:

• How are today’s globalized assemblages of educational capitalism relevant to issues of diversity?

• What kind of ideas and values are underpinning the concept and where do they come from?

• Which goals, methods and forms of critical media education are important to strengthen democratic and sustainable development paths in media development, in the use and design of digital media?

• What is the role of media educational research for designing for knowledge diversity and viable futures of education?

The aim of the paper is to go into the dominant ideas about education and new technology. They have through the last decades often been related to catchwords of different kinds and great visions of what can be achieved by using digital learning tools (Haugsbakk, 2011). They have to a large extent been promoted by technology companies, and their efforts were intensified during the pandemics (Williamson, 2020). The consequences have been increasingly crucial as digital media and technology entered the heart of the global economy (Schiller, 1999) and the technology giants became the largest and most powerful companies in the world (Forbes, 2022). Primarily the paper focuses on what might be perceived as a quite new phenomenon in political strategy documents, namely “adaptive learning”. In Norwegian parliamentary reports the last 5 – 10 years there has been a strong belief that adaptive learning will be able to solve a number of pedagogical challenges in the school system (Ministry of Education, 2017; Klausen, 2020). The publishing industry has been early in developing adaptive learning materials. This also applies to Norwegian publishers, partly in close relations with large American companies. Related to this, it is quite interesting that the ideas of adaptive learning for some years have been the most important prerequisite for a number of private schools in the USA gathered under the AltSchool umbrella (altschool, 2019). The AltSchool concept was founded by a former top executive at Google, and the school has received major financial support from, among others, Mark Zuckerberg (Selwyn, 2010). The We ask if adaptive learning is to be perceived as “the new mantra" in the dominant rhetoric about tomorrow's school. We go into what this entails, which ideas and values ​​underlie it and where they come from. The paper is to a large extent based on literature studies and it is inspired by various discourse analytical approaches such as e.g. Norman Fairclough's thoughts on "the technologization of discourse" (Fairclough, 2015), but also network analysis and network ethnography (Ball & Junemann, 2012).

AltSchool. (2018, 1 October). About us. https://www.altschool.com/about-us Ball, S. J. & Junemann, C. (2012). Networks, new governance and education. Bristol: Policy Press. Fairclough, N. (2015). Language and power. Longman. Forbes (2022). Global 2000. https://www.forbes.com/lists/global2000/?sh=2ffff8f25ac0 Haugsbakk, G. (2011). How Political Ambitions Replace Teacher Involvement: Some Critical Perspectives on the Introduction of ICT in Norwegian Schools. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 6(4). https://www.idunn.no/dk/2011/04/art03 Klausen, S. W. (2020). Fra kritt til programmering: En kritisk diskursanalyse av begrepet digitale ferdigheter i norsk utdanningspolitikk og i norsk videregående opplæring. Høgskolen i Innlandet. Ministry of Education (Kunnskapsdepartementet) (2017). Framtid, fornyelse og digitalisering - Digitaliseringsstrategi for grunnopplæringen 2017–2021. https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/dc02a65c18a7464db394766247e5f5fc/kd_fr amtid_fornyelse_digitalisering_nett.pdf Schiller, D. (1999). Digital Capitalism. Networking the Global Market System. MIT Press. Selwyn, N. (2010).Schools and schooling in the digital age: A critical analysis. London & New York: Routledge. Williamson, B. (2020). New pandemic edtech power networks. code acts in education, April 1, 2020. https://codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2020/04/01/new-pandemic-edtech-power-networks/

Throughout history, technological changes have affected and continue to affect educational concepts and practices as well as ideas about the future of education. Over the last three decades, the rhetoric of information and communication technology (ICT), digitalization programs as well as dynamics of datafication and marketization have become increasingly influential in this context (Haugsbakk & Nordkvelle, 2007; Shanks, 2020). This applies to educational policies and governance as well as to educational research and practices. While questions regarding knowledge use for sustainability and diversity are widely discussed today, issues of changing knowledge ecologies (Kuhlen, 2013) in educational research have hardly been studied so far. According to Barnett and Bengtsen (2020), the concept of 'knowledge' in a post-truth era needs to be rethought, especially as regards relations between reliable knowledges, universities, and everyday life (cf. Stadler-Altmann et al. 2023). These processes of change in the knowledge generation encounter relatively fixed structures of knowledge organization and transfer at universities, which face these new challenges with a time lag. This can be seen in a comparison of the three European countries and their university structures, each of which has its own culturally determined and historically evolved scientific organization. In Italy, research and teaching are organized along the lines of "scientific sectors", which are defined in a list drawn up by the Minister of Education. Fundamental differences can also be found in the way knowledge is communicated and conveyed through language, as Heller (2006) and Heller et al. (2015) can show for Italy and Germany. These framework conditions are now being subjected to processes of change through new technological possibilities (see Stadler-Altmann 2022). Recently, the influence of Open AI in educational institutions at all levels has been decisive and it is assumed that these new instruments will significantly change the way knowledge is produced. Against this background, the lines between academic, professional and common knowledge are becoming more subtle and new modes of distribution of forms of knowing are likely to emerge. The contribution starts (1) with an outline of the concepts of knowledge ecology and knowledge diversity, followed (2) by a critical discussion of ongoing tendencies of digitalization and datafication of academic knowledge production in the field of education in three European countries (Italy, Austria and Germany). Finally (3), the contribution aims at reflecting assumed and conceivable implications of changing educational knowledge ecologies and waning knowledge diversity.

Barnett R., & Bengtsen, S.S. (2020). Knowledge and the university: Re-claiming life. Routledge. Gross, B., Hofbauer, S., & Keiner, E. (2022).The “Science of Education” – Different Terms, Concepts, Cultures and Epistemologies? A Contribution to a Social Epistemology. SPES: Rivista Di Politica, Educazione e Storia, XV(16), 19–37. Haugsbakk, G. & Nordkvelle, Y. (2007). The Rhetoric of ICT and the New Language of Learning: A Critical Analysis of the Use of ICT in the Curricular Field. European Educational Research Journal, 6. 10.2304/eerj.2007.6.1.1. Heller, D. (2006), L’autore traccia un quadro …Beobachtungen zur Versprachlichung wissenschaftlichen Handelns im Deutschen und Italienischen, in: Ehlich, K.; Heller, D. (Hrsg.): Die Wissenschaft und ihre Sprachen. Bern, S. 63–86. Kuhlen, R. (2013). A 6 Wissensökologie: Wissen und Information als Commons (Gemeingüter), ed. by R. Kuhlen et al., DeGruyter, pp. 68-85. Peters, M. et al. (2020). Reimagining the new pedagogical possibilities for universities post-Covid-19, Educational Philosophy and Theory.DOI:10.1080/00131857.2020.1777655 Shanks, R. (2020). 30 years of ICT in education: reflecting on educational technology projects. Seminar.Net, 16(2), 15. https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.4047 Stadler-Altmann, U. (2022), Präsenz- oder Online-Lehre, oder besser hybride Lehre? Change-Prozesse in der Lehre einer italienischen Universität, in: NHHL, Neues Handbuch Hochschullehre. D 3.45. https://www.nhhl-bibliothek.de/de/handbuch

There are three giants stalking schools in Scotland, their names are Shoogle McGoogle, and Billy McMicrosoft and Macintosh Fitzapple. They are rallying their clans around shiny beacons and building protective dykes around their fiefdoms. The youngsters growing up in the shadow of these defences are being indoctrinated into the customs and ways of each clan. In 2009, Scotland earned international acclaim for the creation of Glow. As the world's first national intranet system for schools, Glow aimed to connect Scotland's 800,000 pupils and teachers online and allow them to pool resources and share educational materials. By 2014 the system had suffered a number of issues and was taken offline. Its successor GLOW365 moved away from editable HTML modules instead becoming a launch page for a national Microsoft Office 365 tenancy and gateway to other platforms, including Google Workspace for Education. This national adoption of Microsoft 365 marked a turning point in digital education in Scotland. Paired with the emergence of 1:1 device rollouts, the giants were now welcomed into our schools. Over the past 9 years, they have carved out fiefdoms, their territories protected by under-resourced Local Authorities and labour-intensive Data Protection requirements. As a result, schools and teachers, rather than having a feast at a digital banquet, find their menus reduced. Their ability to choose the best tools replaced by resourcefulness, the most competent making the best of what is available. This brand loyalty is rewarded with digital credentials which indicate proficiency in the tools proffered by their clan giant. Whole schools are equally recognised with awards and titles. As a result, our schools are becoming test grounds for new products, with the data of every child and adult being fed to the Giant to ensure their further dominance and success.

Brown, K. (2021). Is Scotland facing a computing studies crisis?, www.digitalxtrafund.scot. Available at: https://www.digitalxtrafund.scot/graeme-gordon-polly-purvis/# Hooper, L., Livingstone, S., and Pothong, K. (2022). Problems with data governance in UK schools: the cases of Google Classroom and ClassDojo. Digital Futures Commission, 5Rights Foundation. Knox, D. (2022). Apple targets Scottish Borders for teaching revolution, BBC News. BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-63545718 Krutka, D. G., Smits, R. M., & Willhelm, T. A. (2021). Don’t be evil: Should we use Google in schools?. TechTrends, 65(4), 421-431. Meaker, M. (2022). A Danish City Built Google Into Its Schools—Then Banned It, WIRED UK. Available at: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/denmark-google-schools-data Saldaña, C. M., Welner, K., Malcolm, S. and Tisch, E. (2021). Teachers as market influencers: Towards a policy framework for teacher brand ambassador programs in K-12 schools, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29 (August - December) Holyrood Newsletter (2022). Edinburgh begins roll-out of project that will give free iPad to 40,000 school pupils. Available at: https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,edinburgh-begins-rollout-of-project-that-will-give-free-ipad-to-40000-school-pupils Microsoft News Centre UK (2018). Scottish School will help Microsoft Transform Education from the ground up. Available at: https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2018/09/21/scottish-school-will-help-microsoft-transform-education-from-the-ground-up/ Education Scotland. (2022). Mobile learning. Available at: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/research/mobile-learning/

Scotland is a nation held captive. Since 2007/2010 it has been under the control of a socially interfering/fiscally austere, independence-obsessed/democracy-denying SNP/Conservative Holyrood/Westminster government ruling Scotland/the UK like a single party state (delete as preferred). These two polarized positions, and their ideological proponents, illustrate the challenges of presenting a coherent narrative of current events in the digital sphere. Scotland is far from alone in facing the challenges of narrative and affective polarization through digital media. Teaching competing narratives can help young people to be open-minded toward polarizing content in the classroom. Skills of critical evaluation are needed to help young people evaluate competing narratives. Virtue epistemology frames affective polarization in terms of questions such as: what makes a person good from an epistemic or intellectual point of view? What kinds of qualities do such individuals possess? How do such individuals model these epistemic qualities? How do we become open-minded? What kinds of emotions and motivations are characteristic of open-minded persons, how can they be acquired, and what benefits do these virtuous dispositions have? (Broncano-Berrocal & Carter 2020). This presentation draws on a virtue epistemology approach to understand the challenge of refurbishing a coherent moral education for young people in a digital age. This presentation focuses on the effectiveness of Parallel Histories, a series of history resources for teaching source evaluation and argumentation through contested narratives, including Scottish, Irish and Israel/Palestine history by teaching two competing narratives using a mix of digital sources. Drawing on a UK-wide survey of secondary school teachers on the challenges, practices and aims of teaching for digital citizenship, the presentation highlights teachers who are aware of, or make use of Parallel Histories resources, and asks whether their responses and framing of digital challenges are different from the norm. Conducted as part of a large ESRC-funded project “Teaching for Digital Citizenship: Data Ethics in the Classroom and Beyond”, the survey asks teachers to identify the principal challenges of teaching young people for moral autonomy in a digital age. Survey results will facilitate an understanding of the dominant understandings of digital and data ethics, the place of affective polarization, differences between the four nations of the UK, and the influence of different resource providers such as Parallel Histories in framing challenges for practitioners.

Broncano-Berrocal, F. & Carter, J.A. (2020) The Epistemology of Group Disagreement. Routledge. Parallel Histories: https://parallelhistories.org.uk