From accountability to digital data: the rise and rise of educational governance

Research interest in educational governance has increased in recent years with the rise to prominence of transnational organisations such as the OECD and the importance attached to international comparison of educational systems. However, rarely do educational researchers consider the historical antecedents that have attended these developments. Yet to more fully appreciate where we are now it is necessary to examine the national and global events that have shaped the current policy context. This paper presents a review of educational governance in the UK from the 1970s seeing in this a trajectory from the emergence of accountability to today’s overriding concern with digital data. In doing this, the paper aims to go beyond providing a historical account, rather its purpose is to shed light on educational change; and further, to analyse the contribution of educational research to an understanding of events as they have unfolded over the past five decades. While it is necessarily rooted within the particular historical context of the UK it can be read as an analysis of the factors influencing educational change in the context of globalised policy spaces more broadly. A recurrent theme is the appearance of the ‘unanticipated consequence’, one of the most important issues the social sciences has to contend with. Thus a tentative theory of ironic reversal as a source of policy failure emerges which is not only of relevance to educational policy but of wider significance

Utilising a cultural–historical analysis to map the historicity of Social Studies, Natural Science and Technology education in the early years

Background: South Africa needs citizens who are morally sound, adaptive to change, technologically innovative and literate in socio-scientific issues. The young child is apparently being prepared for active citizenry through basic “Social Science, Natural Sciences and Technology” education as encapsulated in the South African curriculum. Aim: We foreground a theoretical and analytical framework to map the cultural–historical trajectory of South Africa’s Beginning Knowledge curriculum. Setting: Cultivating citizenship requires that these science subject domains be incorporated in a coherent, well-conceptualised and relevant early childhood curriculum as suggested by international literature. Educators need to be specialists in socio-scientific issues in both the content and pedagogy of these sciences in order to expound the curriculum. Methods: Our newly coined hybridised theoretical framework - the ‘Hybrid CHAT’ - together with an aligned analytical framework enabled us to illuminate the historical subject-didactical genetic development of Beginning Knowledge. An extensive sample of typographical textbooks, artefacts and cultural tools were analysed and interpreted. Results: Beginning Knowledge is afforded limited teaching time. The knowledge, skills and values associated with these science subjects serve to support and strengthen the acquisition of language and mathematics competencies. Currently, Beginning Knowledge does not sufficiently prepare child citizens for the global demands of the 21st century. Conclusion: Hybrid CHAT could invite further studies to place Beginning Knowledge on par with international curricula. This would also align the curriculum with the aspirations for an ideal South African citizenry as well as prepare child citizens to pursue Science and Technology for social development

Challenging Participation in Sustainability Research

If we take the rhetoric of recent academic and policy discourse at face value, crossing disciplinary and institutional boundaries and engaging extra-scientific actors in the production and distribution of knowledge has become a kind of ‘gold standard’ . This is particularly true for fields like sustainability research, which is supposed to address the complexity of so-called ‘grand challenges’ of contemporary societies. Investigating the projects of a funding scheme for participatory sustainability research, this paper explores how researchers frame participatory research practices in their prospective narrations in research proposals and in their retrospective reflections in the framework of interviews. Thereby we focus on their stories about (1 ) the overall value of participation, (2) the roles allocated to different actors, (3) the temporal organization of participation as well as the (4) spatial dimension of collaboration. Building on this analysis, the paper concludes that even though participatory research programs create new possibilities, they remain limited in scope as they operate in an environment in which this kind of cross-boundary work does not fit the established standards. This strongly limits any form of “collective experimentation” and new ways of learning in sustainability research and beyond

Reordering the “World of Things”: The Sociotechnical Imaginary of RFID Tagging and New Geographies of Responsibility

The aim of this study is to investigate radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging as a form of sociotechnical experimentation and the kinds of sociotechnical futures at stake in this experimentation. For this purpose, a detailed analysis of a publicly available promotional video by a tag producer for the fashion industry, a sector widely using RFID tags, was analysed in detail. The results of the study indicated that the sociotechnical imaginary of RFID tagging gravitates around the core value of perfect sociotechnical efficiency. This demands a high degree of readiness to engage in standardization efforts, which performs a specific materialized understanding of ethics by other means. Furthermore, the analysis points to the importance of considering the spatiotemporal dimensions in which RFID tags work when reflecting on how this technology matters to society. Finally, the analysis shows a tacit effort to keep RFID technology and thus any questions of responsible innovation confined to the shop floor. However, given the spreading of the use of RFIDs, much wider-ranging considerations are called for.© The Author(s) 201

Plan S, Open Access and the potential roles for STS research

Opinion piece (no abstract available)Copyright (c) 2020 Elena Šimukovi

Open Access zwischen kollektivem Handeln, (un-)sichtbaren Infrastrukturen und neoliberalen Verwandlungen

Der Beitrag basiert auf dem Keynote-Vortrag der Autorin an den Open-Access-Tagen 2019 in Hannover und fasst die wichtigsten Diskussionspunkte kurz zusammen. Sein Gegenstand ist eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit dem gegenwärtig vielerorts angestrebten Übergang vom subskriptionsbasierten zum kostenfreien Zugang (Open Access) im wissenschaftlichen Publikationswesen. Zunächst werden die Ursprünge und Wendepunkte in der Begriffsgeschichte von Open Access seit der Budapester Erklärung bis hin zu den sogenannten „transformative agreements“ nachgezeichnet. Nachdem die einzelnen Aspekte derartiger Vereinbarungen einer näheren Betrachtung unterzogen werden, schließt der Beitrag mit einer kurzen Darstellung von möglichen Risiken und Auswirkungen der auf Publikationsgebühren (Article Processing Charges, APCs) basierenden Open Access-Modelle