Performative ontologies. Sociomaterial approaches to researching adult education and lifelong learning

Sociomaterial approaches to researching education, such as those generated by actornetwork theory and complexity theory, have been growing in significance in recent years, both theoretically and methodologically. Such approaches are based upon a performative ontology rather than the more characteristic representational epistemology that informs much research. In this article, we outline certain aspects of sociomaterial sensibilities in researching education, and some of the uptakes on issues related to the education of adults. We further suggest some possibilities emerging for adult education and lifelong learning researchers from taking up such theories and methodologies. (DIPF/Orig.

Introducing a Sociomaterial Perspective to Investigate E-learning for Higher Educational Institutions in Developing Countries

E-learning projects in developing countries suffer enormous challenges because of various factors. Particularly, technologies that are designed and developed outside of a developing country context are causing significant problems when implemented in developing countries. So far e-learning studies in developing countries have examined utilization, acceptance, adoption, success and failure using the following factors: culture, human behaviour towards technology, and organizational influences. This paper reviews different theoretical perspectives used so far and determines that they are not capturing the complexity of the environment of e-learning implementations in developing countries. In particular, the inextricable entanglement of people, technology and the environment is under-appreciated. Furthermore, the complex design implications of that entanglement are not well managed. This paper explores the potentiality of ‘sociomateriality’ as a new lens to examine the uptake and design of the virtual learning environment in a developing country context. The framework proposed uses the concept of entanglement for examining technology uptake and the concept of sociomaterial imbrication to investigate the design considerations of the virtual learning environment. The proposed framework will be trialled in a forthcoming research project investigating virtual learning environment implementations in state-owned higher education institutions in a developing country

Tracing Translations of ICT Policies in Higher Education

Educational policy enactment is a matter of policy translation. A Latourian sociomaterial perspective is proposed to challenge traditional policy implementation frameworks. We offer analytical tools to trace processes of policy translation in practice settings as entanglements of human agents, material actants and activities. The analytical strategy is deployed in the case of three Colombian higher education institutions working with ICT policies for teacher development. The cases show that agency is distributed among different entities constituting assemblages that enact policies in unexpected pathways. Equally, in all these cases routine activities or unobserved artifacts were key to trace such translations of policies. Our analysis and findings provide a critical review of hermeneutics of policies, one of the dimensions of Stephen Ball´s policy enactment theory. In doing so, a more nuanced understanding of policy enactment is achieved, contributing both theoretically and methodologically in the analysis of education policies in Latin America.La puesta en práctica de las políticas educativas es un asunto de traducción de la política. Una perspectiva sociomaterial de corte Latouriano se propone en este escrito para desafiar marcos de análisis tradicionales sobre implementación de la política educativa. Ofrecemos herramientas analíticas para trazar procesos de traducción de la política en escenarios de práctica entendidos como ensamblajes de agentes humanos, actantes materiales y actividades. La estrategia analítica se lleva a cabo en el caso de tres instituciones de educación colombianas que trabajan con políticas TIC para el desarrollo docente. Los casos analizados evidencian que la agencia se distribuye entre diferentes entidades que constituyen ensambles, los cuales ponen en práctica dichas políticas de formas inesperadas. De igual forma, en todos estos casos las actividades rutinarias o artefactos inobservados fueron claves para trazar la traducción de la política. Nuestros análisis y hallazgos proveen una lectura crítica de la hermenéutica de la política, una de las dimensiones desarrolladas por Stephen Ball en su teoría sobre la puesta en práctica de la política educativa. Gracias a lo anterior, se logra igualmente un entendimiento más detallado sobre este marco analítico, contribuyendo tanto teórica como metodológicamente en el análisis de las políticas educativas en Latinoamérica.A implementação das políticas educacionais é uma questão de tradução da política. Uma perspectiva sócio-material de registro Latouriano é proposta neste trabalho, para desafiar marcos teóricos de análises tradicionais sobre a implementação da política. Oferecemos ferramentas analíticas para mapear processos de tradução da política em cenários de prática, entendidos como um conjunto de de agentes humanos, atuantes materiais e atividades. A estratégia analítica é posta em ação em três casos de instituições colombianas de educação, que trabalham com políticas de TIC para o desenvolvimento docente. Os casos evidenciam que a agência é distribuída entre diferentes entidades que constituem conjuntos que põem em prática essas políticas de formas inesperadas. Do mesmo modo, em todos os casos, as atividades de rotina ou artefatos não observados foram fundamentais para mapear a tradução da política. Nossas análises e resultados fornecem uma leitura crítica da hermenêutica da política, uma das dimensões da teoria da implementação da política de Stephen Ball. Graças ao anterior, se obtém um entendimento mais detalhado da implementação da política, contribuindo tanto teórica e metodologicamente na análise das políticas educacionais na América Latina

Capturing the sociomateriality of digital literacy events

This paper discusses a method of collecting and analysing multimodal data during classroom-based digital literacy research. Drawing on reflections from two studies, the authors discuss theoretical and methodological implications encountered in the collection, transcription and presentation of such data. Following an ethnomethodological framework that co-develops theory and methodology, the studies capture digital literacy activities as real-time screen recordings, with embedded video recordings of participants’ movements and vocalisations around the tasks during writing. The result is a multimodal rendition of digital literacy events on- and off-screen, allowing linguistic and multimodal transcriptions to capture the complexity of the data in a format amenable to analysis. Acquiring such data allowed for the development of detailed analyses of digital literacy events in the classroom, including interaction that would otherwise have escaped standard ethnography and video analysis, through sensibilities that approach social and material items without a priori hierarchies. This leads us to a ‘performative’ notion of digital literacies and an analytic methodology that is useful for researchers paying greater attention to the sociomaterial assemblages in which digital literacy events unfold

There is no 'virtual learning': The materiality of digital education

The distinction between face-to-face and distant digitally-mediated educational engagement is a complex one, and the two modes are often combined in practice, via ‘blended learning’ or the use of a VLE to support campus-based teaching. The current Covid-19 pandemic has thrown this distinction into relief, in a context where educationalists have been forced to move to fully distant engagement in a very short timeframe. This paper explores how this predicament has brought to the fore the nature of our engagement with digital knowledge practices and screen-based communication, arguing that the notion of ‘virtual learning’ is a flawed one. Instead, adopting a sociomaterial perspective, it argues that all aspects of digital engagement are in fact grounded in material and embodied entanglements with devices and other artefacts

Emerging spaces for language learning: AI bots, ambient intelligence, and the metaverse

Looking at human communication from the perspective of semiotics extends our view beyond verbal language to consider other sign systems and meaning-making resources. Those include gestures, body language, images, and sounds. From this perspective, the communicative process expands from individual mental processes of verbalizing to include features of the environment, the place and space in which the communication occurs. It may be—and it is increasingly the case today—that language is mediated through digital networks. Online communication has become multimodal in virtually all platforms. At the same time, mobile devices have become indispensable digital companions, extending our perceptive and cognitive abilities. Advances in artificial intelligence are enabling tools that have considerable potential for language learning, as well as creating more complexity in the relationship between humans and the material world. In this column, we will be looking at changing perspectives on the role of place and space in language learning, as mobile, embedded, virtual, and reality-augmenting technologies play an ever-increasing role in our lives. Understanding that dynamic is aided by theories and frameworks such as 4E cognition and sociomaterialism, which posit closer connections between human cognition/language and the world around us

The Sociomateriality of Literacy - a Study of the Relationship Between Institutions, Identity and the Internet in a Primary Classroom

This paper is about the relationship between schooled literacy practices, identity and digital technology. It is a case study carried out by a teacher to examine the impact of using an online technology platform (wikispaces) in a year 4 classroom. In line with recent thinking in investigating literacy in the digital age, it looks for new ways to theorize literacy which go beyond the notion of a literacy event to allow for the study of literacy practices across time and space. It posits a theory of the sociomateriality of literacy, drawing on recent developments in the field of IS (Information Systems). Researchers in this field have used theories such as structuration and agential realism to underpin investigations. However these theories, which see structure and agency as inseparable, have made the analysis of empirical data difficult. More recent thinking uses the concept of sociomateriality underpinned by social or critical realism, following the sociologist, Margaret Archer, in seeing the ‘people’ and the ‘parts’ as separate. Such a theory allows for empirical research which can explain how the social and material imbricate or overlap over time and space. Using the concept of sociomateriality, this study finds that, given the right social environment and using the affordances which the technological intervention offers, new literacy practices which are more collaborative, decentred and linked to children’s identity can develop. Because of the constraints of the school environment, the majority of these practices take place outside school. This paper argues that there is a possibility to harness and reconceptualise the Third Space through the use of digital technology, making a link between schooled norms and home. However not all children will thrive in this space. Part of the work of the thesis is to analyse the mechanisms which account for this

THE ENTANGLEMENT OF INFLUENTIAL TECHNOLOGY CHANNELS IN PRACTICE AND DESIGN

Design for academic practice is an important phenomenon in Higher Education. This is the practice through which informal, non-professional designers operating in a variety of roles in academic institutions carry out the design of systems, resources, activities and processes that are intended to enhance academic practice. Despite its importance, the area has not received sufficient attention in studies of academic practice, quality enhancement and digital transformation. This thesis argues that the absence of insight into how designers for academic practice engage with digital technology in their design practice contributes to the mismatch between the ambitions for digital transformation in higher education and the reality of how digital technology is used in higher education. This research has developed an approach to address this issue and enhance how designers for academic practice engage with the digital technologies that are enacted in the practices of lecturers in an academic institution. This approach adopts a novel theoretical lens developed for this research, termed Influential Technology Channels, that produces a model of technology use in everyday practice and provides access, through the existing use of technology, to the enactment of academic practice. This model is used alongside another contribution from this research, practice-based personas – a modelling method that represents the diverse collections of technology use that constitute academic practice, and thus enables designers for academic practice to navigate and engage with the diversity of practice in the population of lecturers in the academic institution. Using this approach to design for academic practice, the form of design characterised and investigated in this research, informal designers are supported to achieve a greater understanding of the audience for which they are designing and explore designs that build upon existing, diverse, situated practice in ways that would not otherwise be possible. Through the implementation of an instrumental case study, this research demonstrates how these methods provide the meaningful connections between design and practice that can support digital enhancement and digital transformation initiatives on a broad scale, enabling designers to better engage with diverse people, practices and uses of digital technology as they seek to enhance academic practice