When inclusion excludes: a counter narrative of open online education

ABSTRACT

Open education aspires to democratize education, promote inclusion and effect change through social justice. These aspirations are difficult to realize in open, online environments, which enable multiple, and often conflicting, perspectives. This paper proposes a counter-narrative that surfaces certain operational norms of the internet and foregrounds their exclusionary nature. We offer an illustrative inventory of some social media interactional patterns to examine communication used in open online education communities. This examination leads us to conclude that language online is subject to a dialectical tension that both includes and excludes. We conclude that a different language is needed in open online educational environments; one that embraces exclusionary structures and strategic ambiguity, as well as the aspirations to further democratize education via digital means.

KEYWORDS:

• Open education
• social inclusion
• online interaction
• social media
• social justice

Acknowledgement

We are indebted to Stephen Downes, Lisa Lane and Carmen Tschofen for their detailed and invaluable feedback on our pre-submission draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Mariana Funes is a Chartered Research Psychologist with a background in Artificial Intelligence. She teaches, coaches and writes at the intersection of technology, Buddhism and cognition. She is a professor at Lesley University, U.S.A, where she teaches dialogical approaches to communication.

Jenny Mackness is an independent education consultant and researcher. She has extensive experience of teaching and learning online. Her research focuses on learners’ experiences in open online learning environments, such as MOOCs, emergent learning and rhizomatic learning.

ORCID

Mariana Funes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5011-9566

Jenny Mackness http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3894-5531