The platformised school: widening opportunities or exacerbating inequalities?

Project Description

In the last decade, there has been a significant focus on the platformisation of education, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic led educational institutions to utilise a variety of platform-based tools to enable remote learning. The use of virtual learning and other platforms has become a crucial aspect of contemporary education, presenting both new opportunities and challenges for schools, whilst recognising that digital access is no longer a luxury but a necessity if a student is to have equal opportunity to high-quality education.

More specifically, the use of platforms is seen to support administrative, pedagogical, and communicative functions of schools worldwide (Williamson, 2017). For instance, during the pandemic-related school closures, digital platforms played a critical role in facilitating remote education (Parkin et al., 2020) and enabling teacher-student and teacher-parent interactions (Cumbo et al., 2021) as a part of schools' learning ecology. As Couldry (2021) describes ‘the growth of digital platforms for supplementing classrooms, tracking coursework, monitoring pupil progress, managing timetables, and governing school processes, is potentially reshaping the whole nature of education’.

The increasing rate of school platformisation necessitates critical analysis of the opportunities facilitated by digital platform use but also of the implications in terms of accentuating digital inequalities and generating long lasting impacts on students’ engagement and attainment. Studies conducted in England during the Covid-19 school closures revealed concerning disparities in access to digital resources (Parkin et al., 2020) and digital inequalities were exacerbated, particularly for students from low-income families (Andrew et al., 2020; Lucas et al., 2020) and children with special educational needs and disabilities (Shaw & Shaw, 2023). The Sutton Trust (2022) reported that only 13 per cent of all students had adequate access to a device, with access even less likely for those in more deprived schools. Similarly, the British Academy (2021) highlighted how students from digitally excluded households were less able or unable to participate in online schooling. Furthermore, while access to a smartphone remains high (86%), 5% of young people reported not having access to other critical devices such as PCs or laptops which would be more appropriate devices for completing schoolwork (Nominet Digital Youth Index, 2022). As such, a heavy reliance on platformised schooling in a post-pandemic era can widen the so-called ‘homework gap’ - that is students’ inability to complete school work at home due to lack of digital access (Anderson & Perrin, 2018).

The issue of digital inequality, however, extends beyond adequate access. It also involves students’ ‘digital capital’, which refers to the quality and level of digital access, as well as digital skills and support available (Ragnedda & Ruiu, 2020). Indeed, pandemic-related school closures were seen to increase educational inequalities, since pupils from better-off families not only had better digital access but their parents reported feeling more able to support them (Andrew et al., 2020). As such, the spectrum of digital inclusion (or exclusion) is neither binary nor static and different levels of inequalities are commonly recognised relating to differentiating degrees of digital access (first level of the digital divide), different levels of digital literacy (second level of the digital divide) and variations in individuals’ capacity to translate their internet access and use into positive offline outcomes (third level of the digital divide) (van Deursen & Helsper, 2015). To this end, digital inclusion initiatives that focus on reducing and addressing digital poverty can be seen as means to enhance digital equity (Ragnedda et al., 2022) and this would help students and parents to use digital technologies to find the resources and services they need when they need them the most.

Despite the increasing integration of digital platforms in education, research that critically explores how platformisation is reshaping school practices and the implications this has for students and families is still surprisingly limited. This project aims to feel this gap and adopts a critical platform gaze (Decuypere et al., 2021) to explore the opportunities as well as the challenges associated with school platformisation. Against the above context and in recognition of the Carnegie Trust and UNICEF UK’s (2021) call for digital inclusion to be seen as the cornerstone to ensuring social justice and equitable life chances for every child, this project’s research objectives are to: i) Develop understandings of whether and how digital platforms have become a primary ‘space’ for schools’ post-pandemic operations. ii) Identify the short and long-term opportunities and challenges platformisation can create for educators, students and parents/carers. iii) Work with school staff, students and parents/carers to establish a shared vision of what digital exclusion entails and how to address this.

This project will provide relevant insights into the complexity of school platformisation and contribute to the theoretical development of critical platforms studies as a research field. Understanding the impact of the recent platformisation of schools on post-pandemic practices and the implications this can have in terms of exacerbating digital inequalities is crucial to inform policy aimed at supporting schools and families. It provides an initial step towards creating a more digitally equitable society, which exemplifies UNESCO’s (2017) mandate that every learner matters and matters equally.