Trial lecture
Place: Auditorium 3, Helga Engs hus
Time: 11:00 - 11:45
Title: Why ANT? How can actor-network theory be positioned in relation to other approaches to understand governance in the field of critical EdTech studies?
Public Defence
Place: Auditorium 3, Helga Engs hus
Time: 13:00 -
Adjudication committee
- 1st opponent: Professor Daniel Pettersson, University of Gävle, Sweden
- 2nd opponent: Professor Mathias Decuypere, Zurich University of Teacher Education, Switzerland
- Chair of committee: Professor Guri Skedsmo, Schwyz University of Teacher Education, Switzerland/Associate Professor Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo
Chair of defence
- Professor and Head of Department Anne Line Wittek, Department of Education, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Professor and Vice-Rector for education Berit Karseth, University of Oslo
- Professor Emerita Eli Ottesen, Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo
Summary
Over the past few decades, teachers’ pedagogic practices have been increasingly digitalised through various instruments designed to support their work and pupils’ learning. Simultaneously, these digital instruments have come to govern teachers by transforming existing practices and creating new ones. This doctoral project investigates the governance of education through digital curriculum policy instruments, with a particular focus on a Norwegian Curriculum Planning Tool (CPT, Norwegian: Planleggingsverktøy for opplæring) developed as a part of the renewal of the Knowledge Promotion Reform. Through three empirical articles, this project aims to contribute to the understanding of how digital curriculum policy instruments shape the governance of education through entangled relations among teachers, the state, the curriculum and digital technology.
The first article explores the interface of the CPT as a mediator with a potential to govern planning teaching through inscribed modes of action. The template that emerges within the CPT aligns with the licensing model of curriculum control and governs planning teaching while allowing for pedagogical autonomy. The findings demonstrate how digital curriculum policy instruments intertwine legally binding curricula as a form of hard governance with digital support as a soft mode of governance.
The second article examines the design process of the CPT as a translation of policy intentions to support teachers’ curriculum work into a digital instrument. The findings highlight the role of the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training as a boundary actor delegating research, evaluation and consultation to other actors. Although collaborative practices during the design phase opened space for teachers to contribute with pedagogical knowledge, they were not given decision-making power. This article illustrates how the design process blurred the boundaries between programmatic and practical curriculum discourses, thereby creating a new space of governance.
The third article in this doctoral project was initially intended to study how teachers use the CPT to plan teaching. However, data collection revealed that the instrument was not widely adopted across schools. This raised new questions about the actor relations through which digital instruments become a part of school practices. Thus, the article explores the contextualisation of the CPT and focuses on the misalignments between the inscribed modes of action and teachers’ planning practices, as well as the breakdowns and absences of actor relations. The findings demonstrate how, through actor relations, the CPT transforms across schools from an actor governing collaborative teaching planning to a mere storage of old lesson plans or a hyperlink on a curriculum website.
Across these studies, the project demonstrates how digital instruments such as the CPT transform through actor relations, producing different possibilities for governance. It shows that governance is continuously reconfigured through formed or dissolved actor relations. Despite these transformations, the empirical data suggest that actor relations are shaped by licensing approach to curriculum control which ensures teachers’ autonomy in curriculum work. Furthermore, the project offers nuanced insights into the construction of teachers’ autonomy. By analysing the interface, design, and contextualisation of the CPT, it reveals how teachers’ autonomy is relationally constituted and shaped by broader relations, rather than solely by the instrument’s interface. Finally, the research contributes to understanding the contextualisation of digital instruments, including those that fail to become a part of teachers’ practice. It highlights how digital instruments transform and dissolve through breaking or absent actor relations and offers valuable insights for educational research, policymaking and practice.