Tracking Technology: Student Experiences of the "Datafication" of High School Technology Use

• In Event: Facilitating Data Sense-Making With Teacher Professional Development, Data Literacy, Student Perspectives, and Equity for All

Abstract

The use of digital technologies within schools is leading to the increased generation, processing and circulation of data relating to students. To date, academic research around the ‘datafication’ of schools and schooling has focused on institutional issues of governance and commercialisation, with little consideration of students’ experiences. Drawing on focus group discussions with 62 students across three Australian secondary schools, this paper explores students’ experiences of school datafication in terms of power, surveillance and affect. It highlights students’ relatively constrained relations with school technology use, schools’ use of data to enforce student accountability, as well as students perceived powerlessness. The paper concludes by considering how students might be supported to engage with (and possibly resist) the constraining ‘atmospheres’ of datafication.

Authors

• Luci Pangrazio, Deakin University
  Presenting Author

• Neil Selwyn, Monash University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Browyn Cumbo, Monash University
  Non-Presenting Author