Postdigital Disconnects: The Discursive Formation of Technology in Education

This book employs a critical discourse ethnographic approach to map the production of social meaning in digital media in education, drawing on insights from Switzerland to unpack the disconnects that arise in thinking postdigitally and ways forward for rethinking socio-cultural approaches. Grounded in Foucault-influenced, linguistically-oriented discourse studies, the book calls attention to the ways in which educational discourse has increasingly promoted digital media as a means of justifying curriculum change. Using data from policy documents, participant observation, and interviews, Mathier charts how this rhetoric manifests itself in the combination of top-down policies, on-the-ground implementation, and the lived experiences of students outside the classroom, and, in turn, surfaces broader disconnects. The volume explores how digital education is increasingly shaped by platform capitalism, how young people’s experiences are disregarded in formal knowledge production, and how the prevalence of digital teaching and learning contributes to issues of access and inequality. Through a critical discursive approach, Mathier demonstrates the need for literacy practices in postdigital education to interrogate the ways in which digital media and education are entangled in larger socio-political practices. This book will appeal to students and scholars in critical discourse studies, critical literacy studies, digital communication, education research, and linguistic ethnography.