Welcome to the research group “Digital Education and Schooling” in the Department of Educational Sciences, in the School of Educational and Social Sciences at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg! The research group was created with the new “Digitalisation Chair”, funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture, in 2023.

The research group explores the cultural politics of educational technologies (edtech) and digital media for schools, orienting to critical digital education and a critical analysis of edtech. Priority research questions are located at the nexus of schooling, digital culture and socio-political-planetary transformation, focusing on three areas:

• AAA-EdTech (Algorithms, Automation and AI in Educational Technology): We (critically) analyse the algorithms, standards, models, data processes and infrastructures underlying educational technologies for schools, especially those marketed as AI. One focus lies on how inequality is baked into edtech and which edtech initiatives are oriented to equity. Another focus lies on the stories told about digital education. We also explore digital research methods.
• Design Futuring (Designing for Justice, Speculating about Futures): We draw on feminist tech principles, decolonial futuring, digital humanities, and justice-oriented design methodologies to explore how to design an education otherwise.
• Ethnographies of Digital School Practices: We explore lived experience with media in schools. Drawing on practice theory, media theory, discourse theory and science and technology studies, we avoid describing good/bad teaching or universal advantages/disadvantages of edtech. Instead, we observe classroom practices to understand how teaching and learning, living and desiring are changing today.

Research in these three areas flows into our teaching, and students’ discussions, writing, activism and projects inspire new research studies. Please reach out to us if you have any comments or questions!