The timeless beauty of data: inventing educational pasts, presents and futures through data visualisation

Abstract

This article explores the complex interplay between the visual, numerical and verbal elements of data visualisation and their role in shaping policy concerns. Focusing on the aesthetic and temporal dimensions of statistical graphics and drawing on the notion of diagram in the Deleuzian sense, the article emphasises the performative nature of data visualisation. More specifically, it explores how data visualisation suggests, rather than reveals, particular visions of educational pasts, presents and futures. Based on an analysis of graphs and charts selected from recent UNESCO and OECD reports, the article discusses the practices of the datafication of time and temporalisation and the beautification of data, which together produce ‘beautiful evidence’. This evidence informs education policies and practices and affects the way education can be seen, known and acted upon.