The critique of digital education: time for a (post)critical turn

2023 - book chapter to appear in:  Gorur, R., Landri, P. and Normand, R. (eds).  A new repertoire for critique in contemporary education.  Routledge

Abstract:  Developing sufficiently nuanced understandings of the digital is proving to be a key element of the ongoing renewal of contemporary education critique. The chapter offers an overview of how studies of education technology have begun to respond to broader shifts in digitally-related critical social science scholarship. This includes increased attention being paid to how education intersects with concepts such as platformization, datafication, automation and algorithmic governance. Against this background, the chapter then goes on to consider the directions that such work might progress over the next few years. In particular, it is suggested that this might generatively involve moving beyond the limitations of a ‘debunking’ critique and instead embracing the theoretical and methodological possibilities evident in the ‘post-critical’ turn emerging elsewhere in education studies.