This symposium focuses on new forms of value in digital education and the role of the educational technology (Edtech) industry in constructing these forms. Edtech is fast evolving, which we can notice from the fast-rising number of established companies over the past decade (Komljenovic et al., 2021), increasing investment, particularly venture capital investment, in Edtech start-ups (HolonIQ, 2022), rising number of Edtech unicorns, i.e. companies valued at more than $1 billion (Brighteye Ventures, 2022), and increase in acquisitions in the industry (ibid).

Edtech products and services are already adopted by schools and universities as institutional users, as well as students and parents as individuals (Hartong & Decuypere, 2023). Edtech is also increasingly prominent in and supported by supra-national, national and institutional policies around the world (Williamson and Hogan, 2020). Emerging critical research finds that Edtech structures teaching and learning processes and determines how education is governed (Decuypere et al., 2021). It, therefore, matters what kind of Edtech is being innovated and rolled out into education. However, surprisingly, critical research is still scarce to study Edtech, its actors, practices and processes (cf. Macgilchrist, 2021). This symposium tackles this research gap with a specific focus on value of and in Edtech – a crucial matter in any form of economic exchange, but thus far not often explicit object of critical educational research (Doganova, 2018). 

Papers in this symposium collectively argue that we need new theoretical and conceptual tools to understand digital platforms, digital data and their governance in education. We do not satisfy ourselves with traditional macroeconomic lenses, such as neoliberalism (Baltodano, 2012) or commodification (Amaral et al., 2018), because they do not have explanatory power to explain and study new trends, such as the shifting nature and newly emerging forms of educational governance. Here we notice a shift in the realisation of value away from an exchange in the market (as with commodities where there is an exchange of ownership rights) towards paying economic rents (as with assets, for example, where digital users pay a subscription to access an app and the app owner keeps the ownership and control over it). The symposium introduces the theoretical lens of assetization (Birch and Muniesa, 2020) aligned with a broader research strand of valuation studies that study ‘valuation’ as a social practice, and value in general as “the outcome of a process of social work and the result of a wide range of activities (from production and combination to circulation and assessment) that aim at making things valuable” (Helgesson & Muniesa, 2013:6). 

The symposium addresses key themes and trends of how value is constructed in or extracted from the education sector. First, the papers analyse new (human and non-human) actor constellations in the field of edtech, including Edtech start-ups, investors and market intelligence agencies. Second,  the symposium unveils underlying mechanisms and tensions that arise with the emergence of these new actor types and Edtech services and products, such as injustice and racialisation, that arise in the wake of such new evolutions. Third, the symposium discusses dimensions of valuation, including temporality, in/stability, innovation and expectations. Fourth, we study various ways in which valuation creates new sorts of temporalities (past, present, and future). Finally, we present a variety of methodological approaches to studying value and Edtech (team ethnographies, database analyses, rapid interviews, document analysis) and research sites (trade fairs, news, Internet sources, databases). In doing so, the symposium at once systematizes our knowledge of how value is being produced, extracted, and ‘done’ in and by the edtech sector and aims to give new impetus to better understanding the specificity of the edtech sector as a whole.  

Amaral, M.P.D., et al. (Eds.). (2018). Researching the Global Education Industry – Commodification, the Market and Business Involvement. Baltodano, M. (2012). Neoliberalism and the demise of public education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 25(4), 487–507. Brighteye Ventures. (2022). The European Edtech Funding Report 2022. https://docsend.com/view/jz3gpvpdibmqqqt7 Birch, K., & Muniesa, F. (Eds.). (2020). Assetization: turning things into assets in technoscientific capitalism. MIT Press. Decuypere, M., et al. (2021). Critical studies of digital education platforms. Critical Studies in Education, 62(1), 1–16. Doganova, L., et al. (2018). Five years! Have we not had enough of valuation studies by now?. Valuation Studies, 5(2), 83-91. Helgesson, C.F., & Muniesa, F. (2013). For what it’s worth: An introduction to valuation studies. Valuation Studies, 1(1), 1-10. HolonIQ (2022). Website: https://www.holoniq.com/notes/global-Edtech-venture-capital-report-full-year-2021 Komljenovic, J. (2021). The rise of education rentiers: digital platforms, digital data and rents. Learning, Media and Technology, 46(3), 320-332. Komljenovic, J., et al. (2021). Mapping Emerging Edtech Trends in the Higher Education Sector: Companies , Investment Deals & Investors. Universities and Unicorns project Report 2 of 4 (Issue November). https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/universities-and-unicorns/UU-Phase1-Quant-Report2of4-final.pdf Williamson, B., & Hogan, A. (2020). Commercialisation and privatisation in/of education in the context of Covid-19. Education International.