Educational data management - the transformation of knowledge, interdependence and power within the digitalization of educational governance

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sigrid Hartong
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 340058676

In the context of the ongoing worldwide implementation of large-scale educational reforms, new forms of educational governance have become of growing interest for social and educational research. On the one hand, the overall transformation is closely associated with growing international policy relations, networks and flows. On the other hand, a simultaneous emergence of new patterns of interaction between state, market and private actors can be observed, leading to a rearrangement of power and regulation in education policy. Both trends are closely related to an increasing fabrication, processing and usage of educational data through new, often digitalized information technologies and data management systems, designed to improve and accelerate the application of educational knowledge in politics, administration and school practice. While the importance of data and its application have become increasingly debated and analyzed empirically, the observation of the digital formations of data infrastructures and their impact on governance is, especially in German research, still in its infancy.The project focuses on the gradual implementation of centralized data management systems in state-level administration, comparing Germany and the United States. Hereby, the structural de- and recontextualization of data (into information and knowledge for decision-making) is of central interest. Data management systems are thus analyzed as new spatial and chronological dimensions respectively as new structurations (Giddens) of educational governance.Germany and the United States appear as contrasting and simultaneously as similar cases. On the one hand, the two countries mark different types of education policy regimes: Germany as a conservative, state/administration and input-led education system versus the US as a liberal, both bargaining- and administration-led education system with a lot more output structures. In fact, these differences appear to be highly relevant for the implementation and configuration of new systems/infrastructures of educational data management. However, on the other hand, both Germany and the US are federal systems with a history of constant conflict and growing policy centralization, opposed by the States/Bundesländer. In this regard, the gradual digital densification of governance structures in both countries appears as highly ambiguous.By applying a multi-dimensional/multi-level research design, which links the question of global policy convergence to the digitalization of educational governance, the project offers an innovative contribution to the field of international comparative research and also to the field of governance analysis/critical policy studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants