Policy and technological transformation have coalesced to usher in massive changes to educational systems over the past two decades. Teachers’ roles, subjectivities and professional identities have been subject to sweeping changes enabled by sophisticated forms of governance. Simultaneously, students have been recast as ‘learners’; like teachers, learners have become subject to new forms of governance, through technological surveillance and datafication. This paper focuses on the intersection of the metrics driven approach to education and the political as a way to re-think the future of schooling in more explicitly philosophical terms. This exploration starts with a critical examination of constructions of teachers, learners and the digital data-driven educational culture in order to explicate the futures being generated. The trajectory of this future is explored through reference to the techno-educational models currently being developed in Silicon Valley. Drawing on Deleuze’s notion of control societies we contribute to the ongoing philosophical investigation of the datafication of education; a necessary discussion if we are to explore the future implications of schooling in a technologically saturated world. We present consideration of the past, present and future, as three ways of considering alternatives to a datafied education system. Alternative conceptualisations of the future of schooling are possible which offer ways of understanding and politicising what happens when we impose data-driven accountabilities into people’s lives.
This introductory commentary on the special issue 'Contemporary ethical tensions: Situated cases of ethical tensions when working with children and young people in educational contexts' focuses on elaborating educational ethics as an emerging disciplinary area within the field of education and teacher education. In this context, we are using the term 'educational ethics' as a term to refer to a specialist area of applied ethics encompassing the study of the ethical complexity of working with children and young people across varying educational settings such as schools, early childcare, digital spaces, universities, civic places and research environments. Work by those arguing for and about educational ethics conceptualise the emerging subdiscipline to embrace, the history and development of educational policies with a particular focus on its potential or actual ethical implications for school administration, teachers, school students, school communities and others; the analysis and articulation of teacher ethical obligations including but not limited to codes of conduct and ethics in teaching; research relating to ethical conduct, manner and the moral life of schools, the investigation of models and theories of ethical beliefs and decision-making in relation to tertiary, school and child care education; and pedagogical dimensions, interventions or curriculum for teaching and learning professional ethics with initial and in-service teachers. (https://educationalethics.org/)
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