Highlighted Session: Digital transformation and educational equity in the German education system: Perspectives on opportunities and challenges in school and classroom development

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

Two key challenges facing schools and teaching are the use of digital media and the promotion of equitable educational opportunities, particularly through inclusion-oriented practices (Schulz 2023). In the context of social transformation processes that are moving towards both a ‘culture of diversity’ and a ‘culture of digitality’ (Breiwe 2023), these aspects can be understood as “cornerstones of a new school culture” (Schulz 2023). In view of the increasing use of digital technologies in all areas of life, schools and education systems need to provide all children and young people with the necessary digital skills to enable them to participate in society in a self-determined way (Senkbeil et al. 2019). However, international studies such as the ICILS (International Computer and Information Literacy Study) repeatedly show significant social disparities in the German school system. In terms of a digital divide, this is reflected in the preference for hedonistic and socially interactive modes of use as well as in lower computer and information-related skills among socially disadvantaged students, while socio-economically privileged students have more diverse access to digital devices (Drossel et al. 2019). Kutscher (2019) considers the different media practices to be a partial aspect of cultural capital. The unequal ways of using digital media and the associated media habitus are not equally considered educationally relevant or compatible with the school context (Kutscher 2019).
This raises the question of how schools, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, need to be organized in order to reduce social inequalities in the use of digital media. The connection between digitality and diversity is also evident in inclusion-oriented or ‘diclusive’ practices, e.g. in the form of automated speech recognition and translation tools or assistive technologies (Schulz et al. 2022).
Technical artifacts are present in all areas of life and have a significant influence on social interaction. Digitalisation is creating a technical infrastructure that constitutes a new space of possibility characterized by digital media and can be described as a ‘culture of digitality’ (cf. Stalder 2021, p. 4). Stalder differentiates between digitality and digitalisation. He understands digitalisation as the expansion of the use of digital technologies, i.e. as a (long-term) process that can not be reduced to technical aspects. Rather, it is interwoven with a comprehensive transformation of practices and cultural orders. According to Stalder (2019), these orders are characterized by three basic forms in the culture of digitality: Referentiality, communality and algorithmicity. Referentiality refers to the productive integration into infinite frames of reference. Communality aims at the emergence of communal formations as an expression of collective integration and networked individualism. Algorithmicity describes automated decision-making processes as the basis for singular and collective action in the digital context. Digitally networked infrastructures enable connections between people and objects, characterize them and permeate society as a whole (ibid.). With the transition from book culture to digital culture, the cultural techniques to be taught and the way in which knowledge is imparted and acquired are also changing accordingly (ibid.). In the culture of digitality, technical artifacts are changing teaching situations in schools, not least due to the developments in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, by decoupling learning situations in terms of time and space and (can) create stimuli for individualized and self-organized learning. The new digital media therefore not only enable new forms of participation in lessons, but can also be perceived as a threat to classroom order.
The symposium will focus on current theoretical and methodological strategies and on approaches to empirical studies on the relationship between innovation and transformation in a culture of digitality. The concept of innovation does not only encompass technical innovations, as even these emerge from the social sphere and are dependent on social application. Technical and social innovations are therefore closely interwoven so that they can only be fully understood in their interplay (Braun-Thürmann 2005). Technologies in schools are therefore not just material artifacts, but rather contain theoretical and implicit knowledge and can enable or hinder practices. Such an understanding characterizes the uncontrollable and a constitutive uncertainty that is justified and managed in social action. We therefore understand innovations as socio-technically constituted because they are embedded in social practices and are themselves the result of social practices. The concept of innovation can be placed in relation to the concept of transformation. Transformation as an expression of social structural change processes represents a second-order change (Schäffter 2009). According to Grunwald (2018), first-order change processes involve gradual modifications to ‘the way an organization works without changing the prevailing frame of reference or the dominant interpretation scheme’ (p. 233). Second-order change, on the other hand, involves ‘fundamental, radical, revolutionary or transformative change’ (ibid.), which is associated with fundamental changes to the way of working and the frame of reference.
The symposium focuses on the social preconditions and influencing factors, the interrelationship between technology and the social sphere as well as institutional contexts and the interaction of actors with innovations. At the center is the question of how digital transformation can contribute to greater educational equity. To this end, fundamental strands from the German-language discourse on digitality and educational equity are first presented. On this basis, contrasting classroom situations will be analyzed. The ethnographic observation protocols originate from two projects: In the first project, ‘UDIN’, teachers, researchers and student teachers jointly developed and tested digital teaching settings during the pandemic crisis. The second project, ‘Talent Schools’, focuses on promoting educational equity by fostering new teaching approaches. The protocols of both projects are analyzed using grounded theory methodology (Strauss & Corbin 1996). In the first step, suitable terms are formed inductively on the basis of the description, which are then summarized into codes. The data is axially coded and the corresponding codes are related to each other. In this way, meaningful sequences in the sense of ‘theoretical sampling’ (ibid., p. 148) are compared as examples in this article. Subsequently, it will be discussed how digital innovation and transformation processes in times of crisis are organized at schools in challenging situations depending on their previous handling of digitality.

Sub Unit

• Educational Improvement SIG

Chairs

• René Breiwe, Bergische Universität Wuppertal

• Laura Beckmann, University of Duisburg-Essen

• Isabel Dean, University of Siegen

• Marion Schwehr, Universität Siegen

Individual Presentations

• The digital transformation and educational equity. Insights into discourse strands from the German-speaking community - René Breiwe, Bergische Universität Wuppertal

• Success and Failure of Innovation and Transformation Processes in Teaching with Digital Media - Marion Schwehr, Universität Siegen

• Challenges and Potentials of Digital School and Teaching Development in Disadvantaged Contexts - Laura Beckmann, University of Duisburg-Essen; Isabel Dean, University of Siegen