A patchwork of platforms: mapping data infrastructures in schools

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the significance of schools’ data infrastructures as a site of institutional power and (re)configuration. Using ‘infrastructure studies’ as a theoretical framework and drawing on in-depth studies of three contrasting Australian secondary schools, the paper takes a holistic look at schools’ data infrastructures. In contrast to the notion of the ‘platformatised’ school, the paper details the ad hoc and compromised ways that these school data infrastructures have developed – highlighting a number of underlying sociotechnical conditions that lead to an ongoing process of data infrastructuring. These include issues of limited technical interoperability and differences between educational requirements and commercially-led designs. Also apparent is the disjuncture between the imagined benefits of institutional data use and the ongoing maintenance and repair required to make the infrastructures function. Taking an institutional perspective, the paper explores why digital technologies continue to complicate (rather than simplify) school processes and practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Data infrastructures
• platformisation
• datafication
• schools
• infrastructure studies

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their suggestions on earlier drafts of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Australia Research Council (DP190102286).