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As digital technologies become more prominent in schools, and a host of new media products appear in classrooms, critical questions are being asked about the erasure of power and politics in contemporary education. To explore the discourse on digital education, this paper draws on discourse analysis of ethnographic interviews with for-profit and non-profit organizations in the field. It asks (i) what industry insiders describe as driving change in contemporary educational technology (edtech), and (ii) whether new actors/technologies shaping a novel educational hegemony, and if so, what this hegemony looks like. Initial findings suggest that while the teacher was seen as key to driving change in printed educational materials, three different discourses appear when describing change in today's educational technology. In the first, learners drive change; the focus lies on the individual dimension. In the second, schools drive change; the systemic dimension. In the third, data drive change; the analytics dimension. Linking these three discourses is a shift from "education" to "learning". The accounts of educational technology simultaneously advocate for improving opportunities for all students, especially weaker or disadvantaged learners, and also strengthen the hegemonic shift across policy and practice towards an instrumental understanding of education. Overall, the paper suggests that power and politics are by no means erased from the edtech industry's accounts of digital technologies and datafication. The socio-material affordances engineered into the technologies invite particular teaching practices and thus affect power relations in education.

This article explores one challenge facing critical discourse studies (CDS) in today's mediatised world: the ontological and epistemological assumptions which prompt studies to analyse the construction of social orders (such as right-wing, racist or neoliberal orders) rather than the fissures and dislocations of these social orders. The former foregrounds stability, and the latter foregrounds instability. In this article, I first sketch postfoundational thinking, arguing that this thinking brings breakdown, disruption and instability to the centre of attention. Although postfoundational thought is most prominently associated with a particular set of thinkers (Nancy, Lefort, Laclau and Rancière), I also include approaches often omitted from current discussions (Lather, Haraway, Malabou and Sedgwick). Second, I consider three central concepts in CDS from a postfoundational perspective: critique, rationality and validity. Critique is conceptualised as a generative criticality which addresses unequal power relations through (fine-grained) analysis of hope-giving, reparative discourse which is oriented to well-being. Rationality is positioned as mobile, contingent, political and positioned, rather than universal and non-subjective. Validity is separated from understandings of objectivity and bias and associated instead with surprise and transgressive validities. Finally, two brief examples illustrate how postfoundational approaches to discourse have engaged with reframing social movements and democracy and rethinking what counts as the economy. ; peerReviewed

Schulbücher und andere Bildungsmedien können, so die gängige Sicht, als "Indikator sozialen Konsenswissens" (Höhne 2003: 45) betrachtet werden. Zwar sind die Spuren gesellschaftlicher Aushandlungsprozesse in Schulbüchern auffindbar, aber das Erkenntnisinteresse liegt bisher zumeist auf dem, was zu einer gegebenen Zeit als konsensfähiges "Schulbuchwissen" (Höhne 2003; Stein 1977) oder "offizielles Wissen" (Apple 1999) gilt. Dieser Beitrag geht den Spuren des Aushandlungsprozesses an einem Beispiel der Produktion eines Geschichtsbuchs nach, das sich u. a. auf Wissen über Demokratie bezieht. Er öffnet die black box der Schulbuchproduktion und analysiert Momente, in denen 'das Politische' den sozialen Konsens durchbricht, d. h. Momente der Unentscheidbarkeit, in denen sichtbar wird, dass verschiedene Optionen offen stehen und dass es keinen inhärenten Grund gibt, eine bestimmte Entscheidung zu treffen (vgl. Marchart 2010; Rancière 2011).

This open access book examines the interrelations and correlations of the postdigital condition and its relationship to education, with a particular focus on participation. Contributions reflect on how educational institutions are affected by the recent transformations of media technologies and practices, and how at the same time institutions such as schools and universities are supposed to enable people to participate in media practices in an informed and reflective way. How, and under what conditions, can teachers and students participate in contemporary media constellations? The book will be of interest to academics and researchers involved in teacher education, digital pedagogy, educational technology, instructional design, education philosophy and media education. Andreas Weich is Head of the Media / Transformation Research Department at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media / Georg Eckert Institute, Germany. Felicitas Macgilchrist is Professor of Digital Education and Schooling at the Department of Educational Science, University of Oldenburg, Germany.

Beruhend auf ethnographischer Forschung beschreibt dieser Beitrag zwei alltägliche Medienpraktiken, die das, was im schulischen Kontext als 'Geschichte' bezeichnet wird' performativ hervorbringen. Vergegenständlichen: Beim Lesen im Geschichtsunterricht wird eine körperliche Distanz zum Buch eingenommen; dabei werden die abgedruckten Inhalte als "etwas Handfestes" mit vermeintlichem Wahrheitscharakter vollzogen. Segmentieren: Durch das Aufteilen und Bereiche-Markieren bei der Schulbuchnutzung werden 'Geschichte' als segmentierbar, Ereignisse und Prozesse als dekontextualisiert und in sich geschlossen hervorgebracht. Die Medienspezifizität des gedruckten Schulbuchs hat - so eine These dieses Beitrags - eine konstitutive politische Wirkkraft im Geschichtsunterricht, welche die Modalitäten des Denkens, Wahrnehmens und Kommunizierens von bzw. über Autorität und sozialer Ordnung prägen kann. (DIPF/Orig.) ; Drawing on ethnographic research, this paper describes two media practices which enact what is called 'history' in a school context. Thingification: When students read in class they adopt a bodily distance to the textbook; the textbook becomes 'something physical' which exudes truthfulness. Segmentation: By marking and segmenting space on the pages, the students' bodies enact history as something which can be segmented, events and processes as decontextualized and autonomous. Overall, the paper suggests that the specific mediality of the printed history textbook has a political 'effectfulness' in history education. This not only presents specific topics and issues as particularly relevant, but also shapes broader modalities of perceiving, thinking and communicating about authority and social orderings. (DIPF/Orig.)

This article explores the contribution of the concept of 'minimal politics' to understanding contemporary blogging. Politics is often used to refer only to state actions or to very rare ruptures to existing formations; citizens' and social media are often only considered successful if they influence political leaders or lead to radical social change. The perspective adopted in this article, drawing on theories of agonistic democracy and hegemony, foregrounds the apparently quotidian ways in which current formations are destabilized. To explore the smallest radically democratic practices of contesting what appears to be a current hegemonic formation, the article analyses blog coverage of the publication in Germany of Thilo Sarrazin's book Deutschland schafft sich ab. The book, celebrated by some sections of the media and population, argued that the genetic transmission of intelligence and the high number of Muslim immigrants in Germany was leading to the demise of the country. Analysis identified three strategies utilized by blogs to contest the Sarrazin case: rebutting, reflecting, re-articulating. The political aspect of blogging, it is argued, should not be reduced to moments of rupture or moments of consensus, but also encompass the practices of tearing apparently tiny fissures in current media/social constellations.