Sociodigital futures of education: reparations, sovereignty, care, and democratisation

Abstract

As EdTech industries grow in reach and power it is imperative to motivate conditions for ethical challenge and contestation, always remaining attentive to the kinds of education futures that dominant imaginaries of technology foreclose. In this paper, we explore how the multiple lenses of reparations, sovereignty, care and democratisation can offer resources for envisaging alternative sociodigital futures of education. We identify how these ideas can disrupt dominant EdTech modalities, exploring how they foreground different kinds of educational relationships and priorities for education/social justice. The paper explores examples of how sociodigital futures-in-the-making have begun to materialise in a range of locations and how they urge new agendas for research, redesign and regulation in relation to EdTech. Whilst the power of the EdTech industry can be overwhelming, we suggest that critiques work from a position of abundance: there are always already many ways to radically reimagine sociodigital futures of education. We argue for the importance of recognising, surfacing, and working with these potentialities in ongoing debates about EdTech precisely to keep the future of education open.