The complexities of understanding the datafication of schooling: disentangling infrastructures, people and practices

Sigrid Hartong, Helmut-Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany

The ongoing datafication of schooling manifests as a highly complex and ambivalent process and through ongoing global-local recontextualization. Thus, it poses significant challenges for researchers who seek to understand and critically disentangle what datafication 'is' and what it 'does' to schooling, both from global and local perspectives. Still, over the past years, a variety of conceptual, method(odolog)ical and empirical approaches has been developed to support such an understanding and disentanglement. The keynote will illuminate some of these approaches, focusing in particular on the critical investigation of data infrastructures, new intermediary actors (e.g., new 'shadow professionals'), and governing practices. Based on these insights, the keynote will equally discuss remaining challenges and blind spots, which should be more systematically addressed in the future.