Critical Digital Education

The Critical Digital Education Research Group takes a broadly sociological approach to exploring the role of technology in learning and education nationally and internationally. We are a methodologically diverse group, employing varied approaches to capturing all aspects of education, from everyday classroom practices to global policy impacts, with a commitment to creative digital methods as critique.

The group is convened by Rebecca Eynon.

Our research is funded by multiple organisations including the British Academy, DFID, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, the European Commission, the ESRC, the Gates Foundation, John Fell Fund, the British Educational Research Association, Hitotsubashi University, the Nominet Trust, the Oxford IT Innovations Fund, Goldman Sachs Gives, Google, the Wellcome Trust and Wikipedia.

Our activities build upon the past work of the Learning and New Technologies Research Group (LNTRG) that was based at the department from 2010-2021. Our four areas of focus are: social justice and inequality, cultural political economy, data intensive governance and policy, and participatory and sustainable futures.

Social justice and inequality

This theme is concerned with the ways digital technologies produce or exacerbate existing social and educational inequity. In contrast to the instrumental value of innovation, we make visible the complex economic, cultural, and pollical injustices that can arise in the development and use of technology.

Our ESRC funded EdTech Equity project currently examines these questions in schools, through rich ethnographic work; and our Tech for Good project explores the realities of aiming to use technology for inclusive social change.

Cultural Political Economy

This theme draws attention to the economic and geo-political dynamics that shape the everyday uses of technology in classrooms. Our work charts the ways that an array of political and commercial actors (including supranational organisations, foundations, BigTech, investors, and EdTech startups) have increasing power in influencing policy and practice, where commercial interests can stand in for public concerns.

Our BERA-funded project on AI in education in England, reveals how policy discourse around AI is shaped by competing stakeholder interests and embedded in broader socio-political and economic agendas, highlighting the need to move beyond technological solutionism to address the structural conditions influencing education.

Data intensive governance and policy

This theme examines the ways trace data, algorithms, and ‘AI’ are increasing ordering and providing instrumental rationales for education and wider society, displacing expertise, normalising surveillance, generating new kinds of authoritative knowledge, and shaping forms of policy making.

Our research has unpacked the ‘black box’ of AI in education, examined the ways data-driven technologies reinstate behaviourist pedagogies, and found disconnections between the governance of trace data and ethical debates in the field.

Participatory and sustainable futures

This theme develops alternative visions and methods for ethical, inclusive, democratic, environmentally sustainable and community-driven education and technology. Through engaging diverse constituents and marginalised groups across the globe, this work aims to unpack the power relations at play in the design and production of EdTech.

The ESRC funded Teaching for Digital Citizenship project is examining the ways school curricula and the everyday experiences of young people are being shaped by technology, particularly with respect to their ability to participate in, and benefit from society. The Co-designing AI with Students project is developing methods to support the voice and agency of students to participate in decision-making in relation to the design and deployment of new technologies in higher education.

The Critical Digital Education Research Group runs the MSc Education (Digital and Social Change). We also welcome applications from DPhil students interested in this research area.

Examples of past DPhil projects include:

• Manal Bougazzoul: Teens, Tech and Learning: An Intersectional Approach to Understanding the Links between Social and Digital Inequalities.
• Tracey Calabrese: Shaping School Culture to Transform Education: An Ethnographic Study of New Technology High Schools.
• Laura Pinkerton: Does not compute: social dissonance in England’s new computing education policy.
• Julianne Viola: Civic Identity in the Digital Age: An investigation into the civic experiences of American young people.
• Erin Young: (Un)settling differences: Re-conceptualisations of technologically-mediated interdisciplinary research in Higher Education.

The work of the Critical Digital Research Group aims to impact research, policy and practice locally nationally and internationally in variety of different ways. Examples include:

• Shaping the academic debate through editorial roles for leading academic journals including the British Journal of Educational Technology, Learning, Media and Technology, British Journal of Sociology of Education, Teaching in Higher Education, and Postdigital Science and Technology.
• Advising policy makers, including giving advice to Select Committees and contributing to parliamentary briefings in the UK, and providing research insights for intergovernmental organisations such as the OECD and UN.
• Supporting practical initiatives, for example via GoGirl, a programme that partnered with Oxfordshire County Council to provide opportunities for marginalised young women to explore training, education and technology through creative programming activities.