When inclusion excludes: a counter narrative of open online education

Six critical dimensions: A model for widening participation in open, online and blended programs

“…This is problematic for many online learning contexts featuring learners with diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. In addition, the logic of the model, which assumes that learner and teacher presence are good, is not borne out by research into classist, sexist and racist encounters in online environments, where non-privileged learners can be bullied, intimidated and silenced by higher-status and more confident learners (Funes & Mackness, 2018;Gorski, 2009). Perhaps for these reasons the CoI model has not been shown empirically to be useful for investigating the success of equity students.…”

“…The extent that learners have choice and control over where, when and how much they choose to study and contribute without social, gender or role pressures (Funes & Mackness, 2018;Mackness, Mak, & Williams, 2010) Purpose The extent that the Internet is used for education and development rather than only for entertainment.…”

Paradoxes of participation in the digitalization of education: a narrative account

“…The technooptimistic and techno-deterministic master narrative takes form in various discourses (i.e., discourses of re-schooling and de-schooling) belonging to the booster category. Voices criticizing or opposing digitalization can be conceptualized as counter-narratives (Bamberg 2004;Funes and Mackness 2018), which, like master narratives, consist of various discourses, such as those of the doomsters and critics (Bigum and Kenway 2005). In the following sections, I will place the arguments above in context by drawing empirical examples from the Kaarina tablet project.…”

“…Close attention should be paid to the language used to portray digital technology use in education (Selwyn 2016a). Discourses and narratives around the digitalization of education have been the subject of a moderate amount of research (e.g., Bigum and Kenway 2005;Funes and Mackness 2018;Selwyn 2015). Most often, the phenomenon is examined on a general level, such as by presenting the variety of discourses and narratives around the topic (Bigum and Kenway 2005;Selwyn 2015).…”

“…Digital solutions often claim to afford more participatory practices than could be attained with traditional methods (Farkas 2012;Lewis Ellison 2017;McMunn et al 2016). This viewpoint is piquantly captured in Meredith Farkas' (2012) statement, that participatory technologies such as Web 2.0 have made it possible for all people to be both consumers and producers of information and have altered the way authority is conferred in many areas, including education (see also Funes and Mackness 2018;McLoughlin and Lee 2008). Put differently, digitalization is able to shape the traditionally teacher-led classroom dynamics into more participatory practices, in which students 'become involved and active participants in their own learning process' (Sadik 2008, 51).…”