Atmospheres of progress in a data-based school

Abstract

In this article, I seek to extend the geographies of education, youth and young people by offering an account of the significant shifts taking place in contemporary English state education around the production and use of data. I present material from pupils, for whom the changes are putatively made, whose voices are absent in existing educational and sociological literature on data in schools. I do this through an exploration of one specific feature of school datascapes: the use of data to create and maintain a sense of 'progress'. This is not progress solely as developmental fact, logic, ideology or discourse but as felt. This article draws attention to profound changes to cultures of education that are evinced in relation to contemporary proliferations of data, contributes to theorisations of affective atmospheres in geography and how they come to be known (as a question of both experience and method), and it advances a novel theorisation of progress 'after the affective turn'.

Introduction to the special issue “Young People and New Geographies of Learning and Education”

“…Hence, we feel it is time to give more room to alternative imaginations and narrations. Scientists in educational research and geographies of education point out that post-structural concepts such as relational space and socio-material approaches to education enable us to understand classrooms and schools as networks, assemblages, and affective school datascapes (Fenwick and Edwards, 2010;Finn, 2016;Fox, 2009).…”

Considerate, convivial and capacious? Finding a language to capture ethos in ‘creative’ schools

“…To use the term may imply that it has relevance and substance as a way to capture something tangible and singular about a school as a whole. As Finn argues (Finn, 2015), it might be more accurate to refer to 'moments', pockets and 'atmospheres' within classrooms and schools, which are dynamic, changeable and fleeting (such as the moment with which we opened the article).…”

The imperative to protect data and the rise of surveillance cameras in administering national testing in Russia

“…Finn, 2015). Embedded in these moves is a shift from teaching to learning as the focus of pedagogical work, and the consequent re-positioning of teachers as accountable for individual and aggregate learning outcomes.…”