Performative technologies and teacher subjectivities: A conceptual framework

Abstract

Critical educational literature suggests that an increased reliance upon performative technologies is currently transforming the very foundations from which teacher subjectivities are constructed. Arguably though, the number of studies pointing to this risk or tendency is considerably larger than the ones theorising why this should be the case. Further, in those cases where the relationship between performative technologies and teacher subjectivities is theorised, the psychological mechanisms that the technologies appeal to are seldom brought to the fore. Based on this, the purpose of this article is to theorise the psychological mechanisms that performative technologies appeal to and work through, by means of identifying, systematising and elaborating extant understandings of such mechanisms in the critical educational literature. The results are presented in the form of a conceptual framework (referred to as the CMIS-framework) which suggests that one and the same performative technology may play many different roles, where each such role appeals to and works through a particular psychological mechanism. Importantly, depending on the type of psychological mechanism that is appealed to, the CMIS-framework suggests that this will lead to teachers (un)consciously conducting particular forms of subjectivising work upon themselves, here referred to as compliance, mirroring, identification and self-realisation (CMIS).