Schools in the making: mapping digital spaces of evidence

Abstract

In this article, the focus is on educational governing in the making. Drawing on conceptual underpinnings of socio-technical approaches, this implies an interest both on the way in which a sound knowledge base for policy measures is created, as on the distribution of that knowledge through publically available instruments. Governing by evidence only is possible when it relies on concrete instruments, such as feedback reports, publically consultable audits and examples of good practice. Since knowledge related practices increasingly make use of online tools, where knowledge is accessible for each and all, three websites are analyzed in a particular way to describe the making of evidence. First, considered as active devices, the websites are analyzed as essential components of the governing by evidence: by publishing specific data and information in a particular way, they come to constitute what comes to count as evidence and the way in which it comes to count. By addressing their visitors in a particular way, moreover, they constitute for whom it comes to count as evidence. As such, we argue, it becomes visible that digital spaces of evidence actually make schools real, and, at once, that there are different modes for schools to exist.

Digital methodologies of education governance: Pearson plc and the remediation of methods

“…Websites and online portals that present the data persuasively as the knowledge required to facilitate governing practices, and the data practices employed to generate them, have therefore become the focus of recent research (e.g. Decuypere et al, 2014;Piattoeva, 2015;Williamson, 2015). Following a long historical rise in the use of data in education systems (Lawn, 2013), such studies demonstrate how education governance is currently being accelerated by software-mediated processes of 'datafication', including: …the conceptualisation and codification by which the pre-existing frames, categories and classifications shape the information that is constituted as data and which influence the possibilities for its usage and effects …; the algorithmic treatment of data through which patterns and correlations are produced; and the re-representation of the world through data visualisation and the navigation of data by users.…”

Digital education governance: data visualization, predictive analytics, and ‘real-time’ policy instruments

“…As a form of public policy instrumentation, these visualizations act as 'interfacial sites' through which different views and visions of education are constantly being composed and compared, altered and modified, developed and designed in order to render certain kinds of meanings and arguments possible. Such techniques of inscription turn schools into 'particular realities' that can be invested with meanings that 'make sense' and can be acted upon in different ways (Decuypere, Ceulemens, and Simons 2014). They guide user interpretation and produce conviction through the ways they flatten and compress extraordinary complexity into simplified and seductive visual presentations.…”

Exploring the role of digital data in contemporary schools and schooling—‘200,000 lines in an Excel spreadsheet’

“…This data ranges from the individual actions of students and teachers through to the ‘performance’ of whole education systems. The notion of ‘data‐driven’ governance and decision making has become a common feature of school leadership, management and administration (see Decuypere et al ., ; Khalifa et al ., ; Piattoeva, in press; Schildkemp et al ., ). As such, there is a pressing need for education researchers to engage with the topic of digital data and ‘data work’ if they are to make full sense of contemporary schools and schooling.…”