The platform classroom: Troubling student configurations in a Danish primary school

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Spanning parent-communication and administration to content delivery and student monitoring, platforms have become an integral part of contemporary schooling. Building on two ethnographic episodes occurring in a Danish primary school in January 2020, this article engages in an analysis and discussion of how the ongoing platformization of schools affects the day-to-day relations of teachers and students in a 2nd and 9th grade class. The article draws on a posthuman theoretical framework to give an account of how two common education platforms used in the Danish primary school system – the MathFessor platform for mathematics, and the Gyldendal portal for Danish language lessons – become problematically constitutive of what and who matters in classroom interactions. By emphasizing and theorizing the relational embeddedness of education platforms, the episodes serve as invitations for a greater attentiveness to what bodies in schools can and cannot do in classroom-based platform practices. An attentiveness which, it is argued, extends well beyond the instrumental discourses of personalization, innovation, and efficiency surrounding the implementation and use of platforms in schools.
Original languageEnglish
JournalLearning, Media and Technology
Volume48
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)52-64
Number of pages13
ISSN1743-9884
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

ID: 372691666