Session Information
99 ERC SES 07 A, Ignite Talks
Ignite Talks Session
Contribution
Over the past 20-30 years, international comparative school achievement studies have established themselves as a key influence for designing educational processes in European schools and beyond (Martens et al., 2016). They have led to the immense prominence of educational standards and thus to a paradigm shift at almost all levels of education in schools (Vogt & Neuhaus, 2021). In this sense, the logics of international educational standards have become deeply inscribed in the logic of European educational research and practice. Accordingly, what is considered 'education' today is largely configured by the international circulation of educational standards through international comparative studies. Following the success of the PISA study, it is therefore not surprising that the way students use digital media technologies in schools is also being surveyed according to these logics and recorded with the help of standardisation and international comparison. The international comparative school performance study ICILS (International Computer and Information Literacy Study) plays a central role in this by attempting to assess the so-called computer and information literacy of eighth-graders in 2018, as it did in 2013. As expected, there was a great deal of media attention in Germany when the study was published, as its results seemingly suggested that students "learnt nothing" (Schmoll, 2019; transl.) with regard to their digital skill and a large number of them are "left behind" (Unterberg, 2019; transl.). What didn’t find its way into this reception were the techniques, methods and apparatus with which such comparable standards and forms of knowledge are fabricated and organised in the first place.
This Ignite Talk takes a critical look at the ICILS 2018 study and these standardisation dynamics. A particular focus is put on the categories and items that are included or not included in the fabrication of comparable school performance data. To exemplify, this contribution questions the items 'technology' and 'social background' as well as their relationship. Although both categories are central and controversially discussed in European educational research, their constructions in international comparative studies such as PISA or ICILS are not self-explanatory. What constitutes a 'technology' or a 'social background' must first be operationalised in the study designs – it has to be constructed in a certain way in order to be surveyed. These operationalisations are contingent and depend, among other things, on disciplinary logics, research pragmatics and institutional power dynamics (Eckhard & Mattmüller, 2017). Accordingly, the research questions of this talk are: How are 'technology' and 'social background' fabricated as categories for computer and information literacy in the international comparative study ICILS 2018? And what implications do these fabrications have for the understanding of and the encounter with digital inequality in European classrooms?
Method
To answer these questions the ICILS 2018 study was first subjected to a close reading, in which particularly the chapters and sections in which the categories 'technology' and 'social background' were introduced and applied were analysed. In analysing these sections, a historical-critical stance was adopted in order to counter the assumptions that have become entrenched in comparative studies and are not (or no longer) questioned. Following the "genealogy of the critical stance" (Foucault, 1996, p. 178; transl.), this analysis was devoted to the "problematizations" (ibid., 179) of truth, i.e. those forms of knowledge that are situationally recognised as truth and serve as basis for action. Such an analysis of problematizations in their historical context allows a critical view of the inherent power relations in the knowledge systems as well as their becoming – which usually remains invisible without this step of investigation. Finally, the reconstructed problematizations that are inscribed in the categories of 'technology' and 'social background' were contrasted with a critique generated from the critical literature on educational technologies (EdTech). This critique builds on a socio-technical understanding (Selwyn, 2022) of the connections between digitality and society and offers an alternative look at digital media in European schools.
Expected Outcomes
This contribution shows how the ICILS study employs a narrow concept of technology that outsources various contexts - above all the societal context - and diametrically opposes it to the technological. This conceptual separation of the technological from the societal brings advantages for the operationalisation of various study items of the quantitative comparative study on the one hand, but on the other hand leads to a simplification of the entanglements of the technological and societal and a trivialisation of the phenomenon of sociodigital inequality (Helsper, 2021). In summary, both the ICILS study's understanding of technology and the digital divide concept it employs apply a technodeterministic perspective. This perspective harbours the risk of ignoring the social contexts in which technology acts, simplifying the study item 'social background' and correspondingly underestimating the complex phenomenon of sociodigital inequality in European classrooms.
References
Eckhard, S., & Mattmüller, J. (2017). Verwaltungseinfluss und Verhandlungsergebnisse in internationalen Organisationen. Moderne Staat, 2, Article 2. https://doi.org/10.3224/dms.v10i2.04 Foucault, M. (1996). Diskurs und Wahrheit: Die Problematisierung der Parrhesia: 6 Vorlesungen, gehalten im Herbst 1983 an der Universität von Berkeley/Kalifornien (J. Pearson, Ed.; M. Köller, Trans.). Merve Verlag. Helsper, E. (2021). The digital disconnect. SAGE Publications Ltd. Martens, K., Niemann, D., & Teltemann, J. (2016). Effects of international assessments in education – a multidisciplinary review. European Educational Research Journal, 15(5), 516–522. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904116668886 Schmoll, H. (2019, November 5). Bildung: Schüler haben bei Digitalkompetenz nichts dazugelernt. FAZ.NET. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/bildung-schueler-haben-bei-digitalkompetenz-nichts-dazugelernt-16469645.html Selwyn, N. (2022). Education and technology: Key issues and debates (Third edition). Bloomsbury Academic. Unterberg, S. (2019, November 5). Computerkompetenz: Ein Drittel der Schüler ist abgehängt. Der Spiegel. https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/computernutzung-ein-drittel-der-schueler-ist-abgehaengt-a-1294424.html Vogt, M., & Neuhaus, T. (2021). Fachdidaktiken im Spannungsfeld zwischen kompetenzorientiertem fachlichen Lernen und inklusiver Pädagogik: Vereinigungsbemühungen oder Verdeckungsgeschehen? Zeitschrift für Grundschulforschung, 14(1), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42278-020-00093-5
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