Teachers' digital work - (in)balance between demands and support?
Short description
School digitization changes teachers’ work. This project aims to identify possibilities and constraints of teachers’ digital work by focusing on instances where there are pronounced differences between demands and support. This project focuses on the Swedish context, but will be conducted in collaboration with an existing Australian study.
About the project
This project aims to identify possibilities and constraints of teachers’ digital work by focusing on instances where there are pronounced differences between demands and support. Concerns related to worsening working conditions and issues of workplace stress for teachers have been reported by trade unions and in organizational research. However, how school digitization affects teachers’ work has not been in focus and is particularly relevant in Sweden with the ongoing implementation of a new school digitization reform. Knowledge of how teachers’ work and conditions are changing in relation to digital platform technologies such as learning management systems and social media is relatively scarce.
This project focuses on the Swedish context, but will be conducted in collaboration with an existing Australian study, providing opportunities to foreground important aspects of the Swedish case through comparisons.
The key strengths of the project are its timeliness, international perspective on the Swedish context, and innovative methodology that takes an integrative approach to using both critical ethnographic and computational social science methods. This approach builds on an established collaboration between project team members and reflects their collective background within educational science and the area of educational technology, combined with expertise in critical data science and critical sociology.
Resources
Digital tool repository for tracking platform infrastructure use - for packet sniffing and screen activity tracking applications.
BalanceED
In media
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. (2021). Pandemins konsekvenser för utbildning och lärares arbete – nytt ljus på digital ojämlikhet. Presentation vid hearing/konferens Pandemins påverkan på den ekonomiska jämställdheten, 14 december, Jämställdhetsmyndigheten
Annika Bergviken Rensfeldt Panel debate (in Swedish), at the University of Gothenburg and Folkuniversitetet, Theme ”Labour market in crisis and change” (recorded video panel debate Sept 21 2020)
Panel debate (in Swedish), Labour market in crisis and change
Project members
Project leader
Annika Bergviken Rensfeldt, Associate Professor
Deptartment of Applied Information Technology
University of Gothenburg:
Mona Lundin, Associate Professor
Deptartment of Education, Communication and Learning
Catarina Player Koro, Associate Professor
Department of Pedagogical, Curricular and Professional Studies
Thomas Hillman, Associate Professor
Department of Applied Information Technology
Monash University:
Neil Selwyn, Professor
Department of Education
Publications
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. & Hillman, T. (2023, forthcoming). The relational powers of platforms and infrastructures played out in school: Differerences and implications for teacher work.
In B. Williamson, J. Komljenovic, and K. Gulson (Eds.). World Yearbook of Education 2024: Digitalisation of Education in the Era of Algorithms, Automation and Artificial Intelligence. Routledge.
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., Hillman, T., & Kiesewetter, S. (2023) Critical Digital infrastructures Revealed: Big Tech and Public Sector Issues at Stake, Paper for The European Conference on Educational Research, Glasgow, UK 22-25 August 2023.
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., Lundin, M., & Hillman, T. (2023). Self-tracking as a Method for Exploring Teacher Digital Work. Paper for the ReNEW Nordic Challenges Conference, Oslo 24-26 May 2023.
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. (2023). Struggle over data assets: Digital rentiership relations revealed in school platform procurement processes. Presentation for “Digital rentiership and asset-making in higher education and beyond”. Academic workshop (invitation-only). Lancaster University, 17-19 May 2023.
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. & Rahm, L. (2022). Automating Teacher Work? A History of the Politics of Automation and Artificial Intelligence in Education. Postdigital Science and Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00344-x
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. (2022). Tracing teacher labour across platform infrastructures: Governing of conduct, public APIs and algorithmic powers. Presentation at the digital education governance beyond international comparative assessment conference, 25-26 May 2022.
Player-Koro, C., Moraititi, K. & Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. (2022). Production of knowledge of teachers’ professional work in the digital platform infrastructures of schools – the problem of locating and defining the ethnographic field. Paper for the Oxford Ethnography and Education Conference, 12-14 September 2022, Oxford, England.
Player-Koro, C. & Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. (2022). Struggles over data: Presentation at the Symposium Exploring education from theories of assetization, 13-14 Oct, Malmö University, Sweden.
Selwyn, N., Hillman, T., Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. & Perotta, C. (2021). Digital Technologies and the Automation of Education: Key Questions and Concerns. Postdigital Science and Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00263-3
Cone, L., Brøgger, K., Berghmans, M., Decuypere, M., Grimaldi, E.,Hartong, S., Hillman, T., Ideland, M., van de Oudeweetering, K., Landri, P., Player-Koro, C., Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., Rönnberg, L., Taglietti, D., Vanermen, L. (2021). Pandemic Acceleration: Covid-19 and the emergency digitalization of European education. European Education Research Journal. https://doi-org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/10.1177/14749041211041793
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., Hillman, T. Kiesewetter, S., Lundin, M., Moraiti, K., Osborne, T., Player-Koro, C., Rahm. L., & Selwyn, N. (2021). Teachers’ (future) digital work within platform infrastructures. Paper for "The Future of Work" - examining discourses and social practices. International and interdisciplinary conference, Sorbonne University, Paris, France November 25-26, 2021.
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., Moraiti, K., Lundin, M., & Player-Koro, C. (2021). “I log in to several systems then I flip between them”: Teachers’ work in digital platform infrastructures, Paper for Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA), Odense, Denmark, 3-5 Nov 2021.
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., Player-Koro, C., Hillman, T. & Lundin, M. (2021). Pressed for Time? How Platform Infrastructures and Professional Demands condition Teachers’ Digital Work. Paper for the European Conference for Educational Research (ECER), Geneva, Switzerland, 6-10 September 2021.
Kiesewetter, S., Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., Hillman, T. (2021). Analyzing Datafication in Swedish Policy and Practice: a Problematization Approach. Paper for the European Conference for Educational Research (ECER), Geneva, Switzerland, 6-10 September 2021.
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., & Player-Koro, C. (2020). “Back to the future”: Socio-technical imaginaries in 50 years of school digitalization curriculum reforms. Seminar.net: Media, technology and lifelong learning, 16(2). https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.4048
Selwyn, N. (2020). Digital labour meets the classroom. Research Intelligence, 145. http://der.monash.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Research-Intelligence-DEC-2020.pdf
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., & Player-Koro, C. (2020). School data markets under formation: How platform infrastructure policies regulate public education and teachers’ work. Paper for NERA, Turkku, Finland, 5 March 2020.
Bergviken Rensfeldt, A., Player-Koro, C., Lundin, M, Osborne, T. & Kiesewetter, S. (2020). Competing times: how teachers’ professional work is ordered by and negotiated with the political economy of school digitization. Accepted for ECER, 2020.