The data-doppelganger and the cyborg-self: theorising the datafication of education

ABSTRACT

This paper uses the notion of the data-doppelganger as a theoretical lens through which to view the datafication of education. The data-doppelganger is the version of the self which exists in the significant quantities of data collected about both children and teachers. A psychoanalytic analysis of the literary genre of the doppelganger identifies the role of the double as a second self which completes the ego, expresses the repressed desires of the id, and regulates the subject as the superego. Using this psychoanalytic understanding of the double, the role of data in the policy document Bold Beginnings is explored. Data is found to hold a mirror up to the child, repositioning it as a normalised pupil; play can be understood as a dangerous, chaotic practice which must be suppressed and data functions as a regulatory device to objectify and control both teachers and children.

KEYWORDS:

• Datafication
• teacher subjectivity
• child subjectivity
• accountability
• psychoanalysis

Acknowledgments

I owe a debt of gratitude to Professors Erica Burman and Ian Parker for their advice and encouragement in the creation of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.