Tracking the Topological: The Effects of Standardised Data Upon Teachers’ Practice

ABSTRACT

This article draws upon recent theorising of the ‘becoming topological’ of space– specifically, how new social spaces are constituted through relations rather than physical locations – to explore how standardised data, and specifically test data, have influenced teachers’ work and learning. We outline the varied ways in which teacher practices at a primary school in Queensland, Australia, were actively constituted through processes of ‘tracking data’ and ‘keeping data on-track’, and how teachers were simultaneously being disciplined, or ‘tracked’, by these very same data. Our analyses suggest that what appear to be more ‘technical’ activities and tasks of ‘using’ data are, in fact, actively constituted modes of governance, enabled through and deployed by ongoing practices of comparison and topological respatialisation.

Keywords:

• topology
• commensuration
• relationality
• standardised data
• tracking
• governance
• teacher learning

Notes

1 All school, teacher and school leader names used here are pseudonyms.

2 http://www.myschool.edu.au

3 NAPLAN is held in May each year.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DE120100086].