Networked together: designing participatory research in on-line ethnography

Abstract. This book contains the conference proceedings of the third edition of Rethinking Educational Ethnography: Researching on-line communities and interactions Conference hold in Napoli from 6th to 7th of June 2013. In 2013, the third edition of the Conference has invited ethnographers in different fields of research (not only in education), and those involved in ethnographic investigations in diverse disciplines (anthropology, sociology, etc.) to present and discuss contributions on the challenges of participatory research design in digital ethnography

Accordi, conflitti e attese. Il governo locale dell'istruzione e della formazione

In questo saggio, utilizzando alcuni concetti tratti dalla prospettiva neoistituzionalista (Powell, DiMaggio, 1991) e dall’analisi delle politiche pubbliche (Battistelli, 2002; Fedele, 2002), si presenta un'analisi della riforma della governance scolastica in Italia, descrivendo, in primo luogo, lo scenario del cambiamento, quale emerge attraverso il supporto dei testi normativi (leggi e dispositivi) che hanno attivato il processo di ridefinizione micro-macro; successivamente, si seguono le controversie (che abbiamo denominato “tensioni”) che sinora animano le traiettorie di implementazione e che riguardano, da un lato, la relazione Stato-Regioni e, dall’altro, le Regioni e le autonomie locali che sono chiamate a concorrere al governo dell’educazione, segnalando la posizione delle diverse Regioni in merito alla messa in opera delle trasformazioni. Infine, si sviluppano alcune considerazioni conclusive, segnalando alcuni degli esiti intermedi dei processi in corso

Network time for the European Higher Education Area

In this article, we discuss the process of standardization of Higher education (HE) initiated by the Bologna Process bringing to the forefront the temporal politics of the standardization of European Higher Education Arena (EHEA). Empirically, we perform a comparative review of the Scorecards indicators at the base of the Bologna Process monitoring project. We argue that the fabrication of EHEA could be seen as the installation of new time-space ‘time’ and ‘space’ appear inevitably intertwined. Instead of being a simple addition, the time space of EHEA interferes with the multiple time spaces of educational institutions and is characterized by being a network time, an unbroken and fragmented temporality sustained, enacted through, and controlled by the fluidity and the malleability of standards. They change recurrently over time, playing with different rhythms. What emerges is an overall arrhythmia that maintains the field permanently in tension. This reconfigures temporality as intrinsically manifold: as multiple and heterogeneous. Moreover, the temporal politics of standards reconfigures perception of past, present and especially future. The current state of implementation is constantly being (re)shaped in relation to the present and future performances, where’s one today level of EHEA targets achievement forms the basis for improvement tomorrow. In this scenario, assessing standards and headline targets become a policy instrument for synchronizing the countries performances, by locating them in a temporal framework that encodes future-oriented dispositions

Assembling Digital Platforms in Education Policy. A Comparative Analysis of ‘Scuola in Chiaro' and ‘Eduscopio'

The article deals with the digital governance (DG) of education. In particular, it focuses on the power digital platforms perform in the processes of social construction of reality, i.e. as devices that contribute to producing what they would like (and claim) to portray (Maguire et al. 2015). Our research strategy consists of an integrated approach intertwining the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and critical studies on education. Briefly, we engage in an attempt of ‘critical reading' of digital platforms. In particular, we try to make a critical sociology of DG, by assuming: on the one hand, the challenge that digital space represents in terms of topological dimension of school (Landri, 2018); on the other hand, the role digital formations play as project of reculturing of education field (Grimaldi and Serpieri 2012), that works by translating it in the space of commensuration (Lawn and Grek 2012). To this aim, we propose a comparative analysis of two influential digital platforms in Italy: ‘Scuola in Chiaro’ (SiC), and ‘Eduscopio’. The study shows how the digital platforms develop in trans-societal structures, i.e. the assemblage of people, technologies, circuits of expertise and policies emerging through the collaborations between public offices, private companies, and schools to discuss the potential as well as the limitations of the investigation in understanding the power of the digital platforms in shaping education polic

On being there with Federica: A multi-site ethnography of a weblearningplatform in higher education

The paper will draw on a collaborative project with/on Federica (www.federica.unina.it), a project of open access web-learning platform of the University of Naples 'Federico II' aimed at offering an integrated environment where students, teachers and users in a multimodal way may have a multiplicities of knowledge resources academically validated and accessible via socio-technical tools (computers, wifi platforms, smartphone and Ipad)

Governance as it happens: the emergence of new practice in the educational arenas

The paper is intended to address the emergence and the stabilization of a practice of governance in educational arenas. The rhetorics of educational reforms spreading in different countries (Edwards, 1997, Derouet, 2000, Ball, 2005) conveys the necessity of changing the governance of educational field, by moving from a rule-governing perspective (the dominant mode of organizing of that organizational field in welfaristic model) to a objective-oriented approach (to be considered more attuned to post-welfaristic approach). This passage implies the re-balancing of the main organizations of that field of practices where, at least in principle, the ‘centralistic mode’ is replaced by a ‘devolved environment’ with an increasing relevance and new competencies attributed to local authorities (municipalities, regions, and so on). Further, the change of the strategy of the steering approach, with the decline of the bureaucratic mode and the search of new perspective of governance entails, in some way, taking decisions among the relevant stakeholders, and at the same time trying to establish “locus” of dialogue and coordination between the organizations working in the same field. While this discourse receives ongoing supports from the dominant organizations of the field (World Bank, OCDE, EU), it is important to pay attention to what this signifies for the local authorities involved. Are they forced to follow these rhetorics ? What does a local authority being in charge of new competencies mean? How does a new mode of governance translate in practice ? In order to face with those issues and give some answers to the questions, a relevant displacement is suggested at theoretical level from the ‘surface’ to the ‘body’ of the socio-technical networks for grasping ‘governance as it happens’ (to recall the well known Boden’s statement about organising). Here, this would imply the specification of neo-institutionalism’s themes (Di Maggio, 1988; Zucker, 1988; Powell and Di Maggio, 1991) in ‘new clothes’ or the combination of that approach with different perspectives (like developed for example in Czarniawska and Sevon, 1996). In this paper a practice-based approach (Schatzky, Knorr Cetina, von Savigny, 2001; Nicolini, Gherardi, Yanow, 2003) has been preferred to describe the tensions and the conflicts implied in the restructuring of practices, to understand the learning and knowing processes developing in situated settings and to give a dynamic view of change as it occurs in relevant field of practice. In that view, the organizations, and in that case the ‘local authorities’, are not conceived as fixed entities, but as an archipelago of practices with moving boundaries, i.e. as systems of distributed knowledge. Here, practices of governance emerge, existing socio- technical networks are reshaped and, sometimes, situated settings of subjects-and-objects come to be temporarily stabilized as effects of trajectories of organizational learning (Law and Hassard, 1999; Fox, 2000; Engeström and Blackler, 2005). The paper will present the emergence of new modes of governance in the educational arena of a local authority. In describing ‘governance as it happens’, we draw on the empirical materials from a not yet finished qualitative research. We will present the making-of the new mode of governance in a local authority (the “Provincia of Napoli"4, located in the South of Italy) by using the ethnographic notes collected through the participant observations of working days of the offices. In particular, we will focus on a local materialization of the idea of “governance”, namely a standing conference collecting together a set of organizations and relevant stakeholders of the educational field of practice (a novel actant or actor). We will follow those who carried out that materialization (their practices of materialization) and describe how that materialization calls for transformation for those involved, and in particular, for the organization that enacts it, by paying particular attention to the shift of power relations and the learning-in-practice associated with it. The paper unfolds in three steps. First, we examine the theoretical themes of our work, by complementing actor-network theory with recent development in literature about knowing and learning in organising. Second, we illustrate the instantiation of governance through a case study on the establishing of a heterogeneous network between the organizations of the field. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the emerging results with the respect to issue of the emergence, stabilization and institutionalization of a practice

La Qualità rappresentata. Identità e leadership come storie dell'organizzazione.

L'articolo presenta un'esperienza di formazione riflessiva in due scuole elementari di Napoli per rintracciare la qualità organizzativa delle stesse. In termini critici rispetto alle metodologie managerialiste, l'esperienza di ricerca-azione si è mossa lungo le direttrici tracciate dalla letteratura sulle culture organizzativ