Prof. Dr. Felicitas Macgilchrist
Prof. Dr. Felicitas Macgilchrist
Felicitas Macgilchrist is Professor of Digital Education and Schooling. Her research and teaching explores the cultural politics of educational technology, with a focus on critical, ethnographic and speculative approaches. She is Principal Investigator of research projects at the nexus of digital culture and education, including the ethnographic study of digital practices in schools (LernDiWa), design-based research in FabLabs (FaBuLoUS), critical utopian approaches to education (ETIC), and the transformation of epistemic practices when textbooks become digital (BM4). She is project lead on the international joint project, Reconfigurations of Educational In/Edualities in a Digital World (RED), co-editor of Learning, Media and Technology and founder of Palgrave Studies in Educational Media. She occasionally advises local, regional and national governments as well as the EU and UNESCO on issues related to digital education and educational technology (edtech).
Curriculum vitae
| Since 2023 | Professor of Digital Education and Schooling [Digitale Bildung in der Schule], Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany |
| 2019 – 2023 | Department Head, Media|Transformation [Mediale Transformationen], Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsmedien | Georg-Eckert-Institute (GEI), Braunschweig, Germany |
| Founder and Head of The Basement. The Georg-Eckert-Institute’s Digital Lab | |
| Co-Founder and Deputy Speaker of the Leibniz ScienceCampus—Postdigital Participation—Braunschweig | |
| 2016 – 2023 | Professor of Media Research with a Focus on Educational Media [Medienforschung mit dem Schwerpunkt Bildungsmedien], Institute for Educational Science, University of Göttingen, Germany |
| 2016 | Habilitation, Education, TU Braunschweig, Germany |
| 2016 | Visiting Scholar, University of Birmingham, UK |
| 2015 – 2018 | Department Head, Textbooks as Media, GEI |
| 2013 – 2017 | Junior Research Group Leader, GEI |
| 2012 – 2013 | Maternity leave |
| 2011 | Visiting Scholar, Gent University, Belgium |
| 2009 – 2012 | Research Fellow (Postdoc), GEI |
| 2009 | Dr. phil., Cultural Sciences, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany |
| 2006 – 2007 | Head of Languages, Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany |
| 2004 – 2005 | Visiting Scholar, New York University, USA |
| 2003 – 2009 | PhD candidate, DFG Graduate School “Representation – Rhetoric – Knowledge”, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany |
| 2003 | MA Education (Applied Linguistics), Open University, UK |
| 1998 – 2004 | Teacher, trainer and teacher trainer for English as a Foreign Language, various language institutes and universities in Germany, Russia, Vietnam and the UK |
| 1998 | RSA/Cambridge CELTA (Certificate in Language Teaching to Adults), International House, Newcastle, UK |
| 1997 | BSc (Honours) Psychology, University of Edinburgh, UK |
Research Interests
- Digital education: What kinds of futures are, for instance, imagined by today's edtech, educational policy or educational practices? Are educational institutions changing as they use new technologies and data infrastructures? If so, how?
- Education, technology and inequality: How is technology - from blackboards to "AI" - entangled with inequality in education? How are educational stakeholders engaging with technology and inequality? Where can we find design justice in edtech?
- Qualitative and post-qualitative inquiry: How do discourse studies, ethnography, speculative methods, critical data studies, and design research help us to explore education? How can a critical utopian approach contribute to theorising education?
Lectures
Winter term 2023 / 2024
Publications
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Felicitas-Macgilchrist
Recent work on design (justice) and planetary futures
Macgilchrist, F., Jarke, J., Allert, H., & Cerratto Pargman, T. (2023). Designing postdigital futures: Which designs? Whose futures? Postdigital Science and Education, online first.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00389-y.
Macgilchrist, F., & Costello, E. (2023). Imagination and justice: Teaching the future(s) of higher education through Africanfuturist speculative fiction. In L. Czerniewicz & C. Cronin (Eds.), Higher Education for Good (pp. 445–472). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0363.19
Macgilchrist, F. (2021). Rewilding technology. On Education. Journal for Research and Debate, 4(12). https://doi.org/10.17899/on_ed.2021.12.2
Suoranta, J., Teräs, M., Teräs, H., Jandrić, P., Ledger, S., Macgilchrist, F., & Prinsloo, P. (2021). Speculative Social Science Fiction of Digitalization in Higher Education: From What Is to What Could Be. Postdigital Science and Education, online first. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00260-6
Recent work on AI, datafication and schools
Macgilchrist, F., Hartong, S., & Jornitz, S. (2023/i.E.). Algorithmische Datafizierung und Schule: kritische Ansätze in einem wachsenden Forschungsfeld. In K. Scheiter & I. Gogolin (Eds.), Bildung für die digitale Zukunft (Edition ZfE). Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37895-0_13
Bock, A., Breiter, A., Hartong, S., Jarke, J., Jornitz, S., Lange, A., & Macgilchrist, F. (Eds.). (2023). Die datafizierte Schule. Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38651-1
Williamson, B., Macgilchrist, F., & Potter, J. (2023). Re-examining AI, automation and datafication in education Learning, Media & Technology, 48(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2023.2167830
Recent ethnographic work on digital practices in schools
Proske, M., Rabenstein, K., Moldenhauer, A., Thiersch, S., Bock, A., Herrle, M., Hoffmann, M., Langer, A., Macgilchrist, F., Wagener-Böck, N., & Wolf, E. (Eds.). (2023). Schule und Unterricht im digitalen Wandel. Ansätze und Erträge rekonstruktiver Forschung. Klinkhardt. https://www.klinkhardt.de/verlagsprogramm/2550.html#
Rabenstein, K., Wagener-Böck, N., Macgilchrist, F., & Bock, A. (2022). Interferenzen in digitalen Praktiken der Bereitstellung von unterrichtlichen Aufgaben. Ethnographische Beobachtungen in der Pandemie. Sozialer Sinn, 297-316. https://doi.org/10.1515/sosi-2022-0016
Wagener-Böck, N., Macgilchrist, F., Rabenstein, K., & Bock, A. (2023). From automation to symmation: Ethnographic perspectives on what happens in front of the screen. Postdigital Science and Education, 5, 136–151. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00350-z
Recent commentaries on critical studies of education and technology
Macgilchrist, F. (2023). Diskurs der Digitalität und Pädagogik. In S. Assmann & N. Ricken (Eds.), Bildung und Digitalität. Analysen – Diskurse - Perspektiven (pp. 47-71). Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-30766-0_3
Macgilchrist, F. (2021). Theories of Postdigital Heterogeneity: Implications for Research on Education and Datafication. Postdigital Science and Education, 3(3), 660-667. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00232-w
Macgilchrist, F. (2021). What is ‘critical’ in critical studies of edtech? Three responses. Learning, Media & Technology, 46(3), 243-249. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.1958843
Recent work on postdigital participation
Weich, A., & Macgilchrist, F. (Eds.). (2023). Postdigital Participation in Education. Palgrave. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031380518
Poltze, K., Demuth, K., Eke, S., Moebus, A., & Macgilchrist, F. (2022). Erfahrungen des Partizipierens. Reflexionen zu partizipativen Forschungs- und Gestaltungsprozessen. bildungsforschung, 2022(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.25539/bildungsforschung.v0i2.900
Research projects
Current projects
- Reconfigurations of Educational In/Equality in a Digital World (RED), funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (2020- 2024).
- Bildungsmedien 4.0? Eine Analyse zu den Veränderungen von Produktion und Vermittlungswissen im Feld der Bildungsmedien, von der DFG gefördert (2020-2024).
- Education, Technology and Inequality after Corona: A Critical Utopian Approach (ETIC), funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (“Corona Crisis and Beyond”) (2021-2023).
- FabLabs als Bildungs- und Lernorte zur Unterstutzung von Schulen: Schlussel fur eine Integration informeller, non-formaler und formaler Bildung (FaBuLoUS), funded by the BMBF (2020-2023).
- Lernkultur im digitalen Wandel. Ethnographische Studien zu Schule und Unterricht (LernDiWa), funded by the Niedersachsen Ministry of Science and Culture (2019-2023).
I am also on the Research Board of Educational Ecosystems: Patterns, Practices and Services (EEPPS) and associated with Speculative Social Science Fiction of Digitalization in Higher Education in Finland.
Previous projects (selection)
- Leibniz WissenschaftsCampus—Postdigitale Partizipation —Braunschweig (2019-2023)
- The Basement: Das Digital Lab des Leibniz-Instituts für Bildungsmedien (Initialförderung 2019-2021)
- DATA For and In Education. The Construction of School in a Datafied Society (DATAFIED) (2018-2023)
- globalDAS: Global Citizenship at German Schools Abroad (2019-2021)
- digDAS: Digital Media at German Schools Abroad (2016-2018)
- Memory Practices: Enacting and Contesting the Curriculum in Contemporary Classrooms (2012-2017)