Neil Selwyn
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 355822 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Neil Selwyn |
| NOMBRES | Neil |
| APELLIDO | Selwyn |
| FIRMA | SELWYN N |
| AFILIACIONES | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9489-2692 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 120 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 572 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 120 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1997 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 11 |
Hijacking the Digital Backlash in Education
This paper is a continuation of a panel discussion ‘The Digital Backlash in Education: Critical and Postdigital Perspectives’ Footnote 1 where Sarah Hayes, Petar Jandrić, Felicitas Macgilchrist, and Neil Selwyn reflected on the current political pushback against digital technologies in schools. The panel was moderated by Ingrid Forsler and Saga Hansén, who also initiated this conversation to follow up on some of the themes raised in the discussio…
Fixing teachers’ problems? exploring teachers’ repair and maintenance work around generative AI technologies
The promise that AI tools will relieve teachers of tedious tasks and liberate time for more ‘valuable’ work with students has become a dominant narrative. However, the implementation of automated technologies raises questions around how human labour is implicated and situated in these processes. From the perspective of maintenance and repair studies we approach the often-hidden labour that teachers undertake when engaging with generative artifici…
Toward a sociology of education and artificial intelligence
It almost goes without saying that artificial intelligence (AI) appears to be of major social, economic, political and cultural significance – a set of technologies that have been placed at the for
Looking back and looking forward
Anniversaries of all kinds are good opportunities to look back and reflect, as well as to look forward to the future. Learning, Media and Technology is now 20 years old, but it also has a longer hi
When the prompting stops
Teachers are now encouraged to use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools to complete various school-related administrative tasks, with the promise of saving considerable amounts of time and effort. Drawing on interviews from 57 teachers across eight schools in Sweden and Australia, this paper explores teachers’ experiences when working with GenAI. In particular, it focuses on the large amounts of work that teachers put into reviewing, …
The role of ‘AI advocate’ teachers in mediating technological change across Australian schools
The recent promotion of artificial intelligence (AI) across education systems has seen growing numbers of teachers taking on roles as unofficial ed-tech intermediaries and advocating, advising and generally championing the cause of this technology use within schools. This paper examines the role of teachers with public profiles as ‘AI advocates’ in promoting the take-up of artificial intelligence technology within Australian high schools followin…
Future schools and the energy implications of AI in education
‘School of the future’ scenarios remain a popular means of animating policy, industry and public debates around issues relating to technological, economic, societal and environmental change. To date, these scenarios rarely involve the perspectives of school students. Purpose of the research: This study explores how scenarios can be used to engage school children in futures thinking, particularly regarding the uncertainties surrounding artificial …
Critical studies on education and technology
The growing enshittification of school digitalization-marked by the expansion of platformisation, datafication, and algorithmisation of education, together with the consequent loss of the pedagogical and transformative value of digital technologies-has reignited the debate over who designs, governs, and benefits from the development and widespread distribution of digital platforms and devices in the school context.In this context, the present art…
Estudios críticos sobre educación y tecnología
La creciente enshittification de la digitalizacin escolar, caracterizada por su avance hacia la plataformizacin, la datificacin y la algoritmizacin de la educacin, junto con la consecuente prdida de valor pedaggico y transformador de las tecnologas digitales, ha reabierto el debate sobre quin disea, gobierna y se beneficia del desarrollo y la distribucin extendida de plataformas y dispositivos digitales en el mbito escolar.En este contexto, el pr…
Teacher-led issue networks in Swedish ed-tech policymaking – the case of generative AI
Policymaking around educational technology (ed-tech) is increasingly influenced by networks of public and private actors ranging from Big Tech corporations and international organisations through to ed-tech evidence brokers and consultants. This paper considers a relatively unexplored facet of contemporary ed-tech policy work – public-facing (ex)teachers advocating for technological change through various publicity, lobbying and market-building a…
We’re already experts in school, right
The Cambridge Handbook of Facial Recognition in the Modern State
In situations ranging from border control to policing and welfare, governments are using automated facial recognition technology (FRT) to collect taxes, prevent crime, police cities and control immigration. FRT involves the processing of a person's facial image, usually for identification, categorisation or counting. This ambitious handbook brings together a diverse group of legal, computer, communications, and social and political science schola…
The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and policy making
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to both exacerbate and ameliorate existing socioeconomic inequalities. In this article, we provide a state-of-the-art interdisciplinary overview of the potential impacts of generative AI on (mis)information and three information-intensive domains: work, education, and healthcare. Our goal is to highlight how generative AI could worsen existing inequalities while illuminating how AI may hel…
Digital degrowth
This paper outlines how ideas of ‘degrowth’ might be used to reimagine sustainable forms of education technology. In essence, degrowth calls for a proactive renewal of technology use around goals of voluntary simplicity and slowing-down, community-based coproduction and sharing, alongside conscious minimalization of resource consumption. The paper considers how core degrowth principles of conviviality, commoning, autonomy and care have been used …
We’ve Tried to Keep the Beast on a Leash”
Students’ laptops are subject to growing digital forms of surveillance by their schools. Following the theoretical tradition of media “domestication,” this paper examines the incorporation of Student Activity Monitoring Software (SAMS) into the everyday routines of one Australian secondary school. Drawing on two years of fieldwork, the paper details how SAMS was broadly accepted by school staff and students as complementing—rather than challengin…
Granular biopolitics
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided opportunities for facial recognition technology and other forms of biometric monitoring to expand into new markets. One anticipated result is the wholesale reconfiguration of shared and public space enabled by the automated identification and tracking of individuals in real time. Drawing on data from several industry trade shows, this article considers the forms of ‘environmental’ governance envisioned by those …
Making Sense of the Digital Automation of Education
Digital Technologies and the Automation of Education — Key Questions and Concerns
Education — as with most areas of contemporary life — is becoming steadily infused with small acts of technology-based automation. These automations are intrinsic to the software, apps, systems, platforms and digital devices that pervade contemporary education. Viewed on a case-by-case basis, each of these different automations might appear to be of minor importance, and can quickly fade into the background of any school, university or other educ…
Education in an Era of Pervasive Automation
Education and the New Laws of Robotics
Automated Surveillance in Education
A patchwork of platforms
This paper explores the significance of schools’ data infrastructures as a site of institutional power and (re)configuration. Using ‘infrastructure studies’ as a theoretical framework and drawing on in-depth studies of three contrasting Australian secondary schools, the paper takes a holistic look at schools’ data infrastructures. In contrast to the notion of the ‘platformatised’ school, the paper details the ad hoc and compromised ways that thes…
Autoroll
This paper considers how facial recognition technology is coming to find a place in contemporary schooling. Drawing on the ‘script analysis’ approach from the field of Science and Technology Studies, the paper examines the development of a facial recognition-based classroom recognition system by an Australian start-up company – ‘AutoRoll’. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary data, the paper details the ongoing negotiations and mechanisms …
Mixed Messages
Tracking technology
The use of digital technologies within schools is leading to the increased generation, processing and circulation of data relating to students. To date, academic research around this ‘datafication’ of schools and schooling has tended to focus on institutional issues of governance and commercialisation, with relatively little consideration of students’ experiences. Drawing on focus group discussions with 62 students across three Australian seconda…
Reconsidering Political and Popular Understandings of the Digital Divide
This article presents a theoretical examination of the digital divide, tracing its origins in the centre-Left social inclusion policy agenda of the 1980s and 1990s to its current status of political 'hot topic'. It then moves on to outline four conceptual limitations to conventional dichotomous notions of the digital divide and individuals' 'access' to information and communications technology (ICT): what is meant by ICT; what is meant by 'access…
The information aged
Older adults' use of information and communications technology in everyday life
Social commentators in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States are beginning to recognise that encouraging older adults' use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is essential for the creation of bona fide information societies. To date, however, few studies have examined in detail older adults' access to and use of ICTs. This important aspect of the interaction between population ageing and societal change is mo…
Apart from technology
What works and why? Student perceptions of 'useful' digital technology in university teaching and learning
Digital technologies are now an integral aspect of the university student experience. As such, academic research has understandably focused on the potential of various digital technologies to enable, extend and even ‘enhance’ student learning. This paper offers an alternate perspective on these issues by exploring students’ actual experiences of digital technology during their academic studies – highlighting the aspects of digital technology use …
Personal data literacies’
The capacity to understand and control one’s personal data is now a crucial part of living in contemporary society. In this sense, traditional concerns over supporting the development of ‘digital literacy’ are now being usurped by concerns over citizens’ ‘data literacies’. In contrast to recent data safety and data science approaches, this article argues for a more critical form of ‘personal data literacies’ where digital data are understood as s…
Faceworking
Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have been subject to much recent debate within the educational community. Whilst growing numbers of educators celebrate the potential of social networking to (re)engage learners with their studies, others fear that such applications compromise and disrupt young people's engagement with 'traditional' education provision. With these ongoing debates in mind, the current paper presents an in-depth …
E-stablishing' an Inclusive Society? Technology, Social Exclusion and UK Government Policy Making
In many industrialised countries information and communication technology (ICT) is now being seen as a ready means through which governments can address issues of social exclusion. Indeed, in the UK this perspective has been quickly translated into a multi-billion pound policy agenda aimed at using ICT for socially inclusive purposes. Yet, beyond rhetorical concerns over bridging the perceived 'digital divide' and alleviating disparities between …
Hi-tech = Guy-tech? An Exploration of Undergraduate Students’ Gendered Perceptions of Information and Communication Technologies
Digital division or digital decision? A study of non-users and low-users of computers
Whose Internet is it Anyway
It is acknowledged that communication researchers need to develop more sophisticated and nuanced accounts of the social and individual dynamics of the internet in everyday life. Based on a household survey of 1001 adults with 100 in-depth follow-up interviews, the present article explores people’s (non)use of the internet by asking: (1) who is (and who is not) using the internet in everyday life; (2) for what purposes people are using the interne…
Exploring the role of digital data in contemporary schools and schooling—‘200,000 lines in an Excel spreadsheet’
The generation, processing and circulation of data in digital form is now an integral aspect of contemporary schooling. Based upon empirical study of two secondary school settings in Australia, this paper considers the different forms of digitally‐based ‘data work’ engaged in by school leaders, managers, administrators and teachers. In particular, three distinct aspects of school data work are explored: (i) the distinction between official ‘manda…
Students' everyday engagement with digital technology in university
The much-discussed potential of 'technology-enhanced learning' is not always apparent in the day-to-day use of digital technology throughout higher education. Against this background, the present paper considers the digital devices and resources that students engage most frequently with during their university studies, what these technologies are being used for, and perceptions of 'usefulness' attached to these uses. The paper draws upon data gat…
Education, nation states and the globalization of information networks
The rise of information technology coupled with the globalization of the economy has thrust the identity and sovereignty of the nation-state into sharp focus over the last two decades. Against this fast-changing background, the response of many countries has been to develop policies aimed at creating national information infrastructures (NII) – often with educational networking initiatives as an integral or pioneering element. Given the emerging …
Education recoded
Education policy increasingly takes place across borders and sectors, involving a variety of both human and nonhuman actors. This comparative policy paper traces the ‘policy mobilities,’ ‘fast policy’ processes and distributed ‘policy assemblages’ that have led to the introduction of new computer programming practices into schools and curricula in England, Sweden and Australia. Across the three contexts, government advisors and ministers, venture…
The National Grid for Learning
Although not fully established, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative is already being presented by both government and industry as offering students, teachers and school extensive freedom and autonomy in their day-to-day work. However, this paper argues that the official discursive construction of the NGfL in this way, as a 'panacea' to educational problems, obscures vital issues of power and control that may only become apparent once…
Knowing the (Datafied) Student
This paper considers the subjectivation of students in light of the increasing amounts of digital data that are now being produced within schools. Taking a lead from critical data studies and the sociology of numbers, the paper draws on staff interviews in three Australian secondary schools to explore the various types of student data being generated, and the forms of student subjectivities that result. In particular, the paper contrasts the ‘hol…
Selling tech to teachers
Digital technology is an expanding area of education policy. There is growing interest, therefore, in how networks of corporate and state policy actors implicit in the formation of (inter)national education technology agendas intersect with local school systems and teachers. In particular, this paper explores the significant policy work that takes place outside schools and classrooms through education trade shows. Based on an in-depth ‘event ethn…
A Safe Haven for Misbehaving
Although considerable academic interest has focused on serious cyber-crimes, more commonplace Internet misuses (e.g., misrepresentation of self, unauthorized downloading, Internet pornography, online plagiarism, and other “cyber-cheating”) have received less attention. Although these transgressions are of minor legal importance, they merit closer academic scrutiny. Based on a self-report study of 1,222 U.K. undergraduate students, this article ex…
Towards a le@rning society? the impact of technology on patterns of participation in lifelong learning
This paper is based on 1001 home‐based interviews with UK adults. It describes their varying patterns of participation in lifelong learning and their use of technology for learning and leisure. It finds that 37% of all adults report no further education of any kind after reaching compulsory school leaving age. This proportion declines with each age cohort, but is largely replaced by a pattern of lengthening initial education and still reporting n…
Logged on to learning? assessing the impact of technology on participation in lifelong learning
The role of information and communications technology (ICT) in widening participation in lifelong learning, and thereby establishing the UK as a bona fide ‘learning society’, is now enshrined in a series of multi-million pound government initiatives such as the University for Industry, learndirect and UK Online. Although politicians and educationalists have been quick to herald such initiatives as revolutionizing post-compulsory education and ext…
Educational superhighways ‐ in the public or private interest
Considers the world‐wide emergence of “educational superhighway” policies: government programmes aiming to connect school systems to the Internet ‐ and explores their relevance to education. By examining the key actors and motives behind educational Internet initiatives the paper argues that such policies are primarily economically not educationally driven. The implications of this are then considered in the light of increasing global information…
Artificial intelligence and the affective labour of understanding
Interest in artificial intelligence (AI) language models has grown considerably following the release of ‘generative pre-trained transformer’ (GPT). Framing AI as an extractive technology, this article details how GPT harnesses human labour and sensemaking at two stages: (1) during training when the algorithm ‘learns’ biased communicative patterns extracted from the Internet and (2) during usage when humans write alongside the AI. This second pha…
Doing IT for the Kids
For the past 20 years the discourse of the child as `expert', or at least competent, computer user has proliferated in popular and political rhetoric in Western societies. From the early 1980s phenomena of the `keyboard junkie' and `computer hacker' to the `cyberkids' and `technotots' of the early 21st century, notions of omnipotent young computer users have been instrumental in shaping public expectations and fears concerning technology and soci…
Learning to Love the Micro
The notion of the computer as an inherently 'educational' machine has been a powerful influence on both the conceptualisation and consumption of information technology in the UK over the past 20 years. Most recently, a belief in the teaching and learning capabilities of the computer underpinned much of New Labour's policy agenda during their first term of office, most notably in the form of the 1.6 billion 'National Grid for Learning' initiative.…
Assessing Students' Ability to Use Computers
The assessment of students' ability to use computers should be a central tenet of educational computing research, but until now most studies have relied on vague and imprecise definitions of what actually constitutes being able to use a computer. More often than not researchers are content to accept a self‐evaluation from the student, often in the form of a response to a single question, and even the more elaborate attempts to measure ability hav…
A grid for learning or a grid for earning? The significance of the Learning Grid initiative in UK education
The recent ‘National Grid for Learning’ initiative forms one of the flagship policies of the new Labour administration yet, as with the vast majority of educational computing, has remained largely uncontested. This paper therefore examines the key aspects of the Learning Grid initiative in the wider context of the global economic construction of the Information Superhighway. In particular the popular claims that the Learning Grid will provide sch…
Schooling the Information Society? The Place of the Information Superhighway in Education
Despite a history of educational resistance to technology, the internet and, in turn, the information superhighway, have been popularly heralded as having the potential to transform schools the world over. In doing so there has been a conspicuous lack of critical examination of the information superhighway's role in education. This article therefore contrasts popular conceptions of the 'educational' superhighway with the likely social and cultura…
Educational superhighways ‐ in the public or private interest
Considers the world‐wide emergence of “educational superhighway” policies: government programmes aiming to connect school systems to the Internet ‐ and explores their relevance to education. By examining the key actors and motives behind educational Internet initiatives the paper argues that such policies are primarily economically not educationally driven. The implications of this are then considered in the light of increasing global information…
Rationally’ rejecting IT at A level
Additional informationNotes on contributorsNeil SelwynDr Neil Selwyn is a Research Fellow in the Post‐Compulsory Education and Training (PoCET) Unit at the School of Education, Cardiff University
Switching on the learning society? - questioning the role of technology in widening participation in lifelong learning
The creation of technologically-based 'virtual education' has been portrayed as a means of widening access to learning opportunities for those currently excluded from participation in lifelong education and training. Now in the UK these claims are being operationalized under the 'University for Industry' initiative and associated Virtual College programmes all of which aim to make real the concept of Britain as a 'learning society' for all with a…
Information technology and the A‐level curriculum
The recent proposals to include information technology (IT) as a compulsory ‘key skill’ element throughout all areas of the 16‐19 curriculum would seem to herald the end of the largely ‘computer‐free’ A‐level curriculum. Yet, the appropriateness of this imposition has largely been taken for granted by policy‐makers and educationalists alike. In an attempt to pre‐empt the imposition of compulsory IT use at A level, this paper uses qualitative data…
Gilding the Grid
Although the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) has been thrust upon the education sector amidst a blaze of publicity, the 'physical' construction of the Grid promises to be a slow process, with the government giving an optimistic target of 3 years before the initiative will approach full operation. In the meantime, a major initial step in the construction of the NGfL has been the marketing of the Grid to an educational sector historically resista…
Education, nation states and the globalization of information networks
The rise of information technology coupled with the globalization of the economy has thrust the identity and sovereignty of the nation-state into sharp focus over the last two decades. Against this fast-changing background, the response of many countries has been to develop policies aimed at creating national information infrastructures (NII) – often with educational networking initiatives as an integral or pioneering element. Given the emerging …
The National Grid for Learning
Although not fully established, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative is already being presented by both government and industry as offering students, teachers and school extensive freedom and autonomy in their day-to-day work. However, this paper argues that the official discursive construction of the NGfL in this way, as a 'panacea' to educational problems, obscures vital issues of power and control that may only become apparent once…
Must Try Harder! Problems Facing Technological Solutions to Non‐participation in Adult Learning
The current Government has placed lifelong learning high on its agenda, both for reasons of economic benefit and to increase social inclusion. At ‘half‐term’, what are the prospects for a ‘pass' in this course? Using data from a new National Institute of Adult Continuing Education survey of adult participation in learning, and early results from participant observation of the setting up of a ‘virtual college’, as well as published findings from p…
Promoting Mr. ‘Chips’
The national gridfor learning
Involving around £1 billion of expenditure over a five-year period, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative embodies the fast growing influence of both market and technological forces in UK education. The formation of the initiative can, therefore, be seen as a pivotal signpost for the direction of New Labour education policy-making, particularly with regard to the increased roles of the private sector and quasi-governmental actors in th…
The role of the ‘technical fix’ in UK lifelong education policy
The integral place of information and communications technology (ICT) in UK lifelong education has been established by a series of technology-based initiatives introduced by the New Labour government since 1997. Initiatives such as the University for Industry, learndirect, People's Network and National Grid for Learning are being implemented as part of a coherent lifelong education policy-agenda fundamentally based upon the use of ICT. Yet, benea…
The role of the 'technical fix' in UK lifelong education policy
The Politics of Connectivity
Since 1997, the United Kingdom (UK) government has embarked upon a series of education policy initiatives based around the increased role of private interests in both policy formulation and implementation. This article takes a detailed look at private sector involvement in education policymaking and implementation using the current “National Grid for Learning” (NGfL) technology policy drive as a contemporary form. Based on a series of in‐depth in…
We are guinea pigs really’
The use of information and communications technology (ICT) to facilitate easy access to lifelong learning for all is one of the central tenets of the UK government's drive to establish a ‘learning society’. At the heart of initiatives such as the ‘University for Industry’ and ‘learndirect’ are the objectives of increasing access to educational opportunities, thereby widening adult participation in lifelong learning. In so doing the government has…
Learning to Love the Micro
The notion of the computer as an inherently 'educational' machine has been a powerful influence on both the conceptualisation and consumption of information technology in the UK over the past 20 years. Most recently, a belief in the teaching and learning capabilities of the computer underpinned much of New Labour's policy agenda during their first term of office, most notably in the form of the 1.6 billion 'National Grid for Learning' initiative.…
On-Line Goldmine? Searching for Sociology of Education on the World-Wide Web
NEIL SELWYN, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, UK Social Science Information Gateway [http://www.sosig.ac.uk/roads/subject-listing/World-cat/soceduc.html] Sociology of School and Education (Sociology Institute, University of Zurich) [http://socio.ch/educ/index_educ.htm] The History of Education and Childhood (Nijmegen University, The Netherlands) [http://www.socsci.kun.nl/ped/whp/histeduc/] About. Com
Privileging the Visible’
This article takes as its background the shift over time in Britain towards models of target setting in education which are based almost entirely on measurable outputs. The original ‘headline’ targets proposed by the National Council for Educational Technology were of a very different nature, as are those of many other developed nations. The article outlines some alternative models involving targets for both inputs and processes, and the use of t…
Telling Tales on Technology
E-stablishing' an Inclusive Society? Technology, Social Exclusion and UK Government Policy Making
In many industrialised countries information and communication technology (ICT) is now being seen as a ready means through which governments can address issues of social exclusion. Indeed, in the UK this perspective has been quickly translated into a multi-billion pound policy agenda aimed at using ICT for socially inclusive purposes. Yet, beyond rhetorical concerns over bridging the perceived 'digital divide' and alleviating disparities between …
ICT for all? Access and use of Public ICT Sites in the UK
As part of their "information age' policy agenda, the UK government sees "universal' access to information and communications technology (ICT) being achieved via new and existing public sites, where shared access to new technologies can be made available at little or no cost. State-sponsored augmentation of public ICT access in the UK has involved a variety of initiatives, most notably the recent establishment of a network of over 7,000 "UK Onlin…
Logged on to learning? assessing the impact of technology on participation in lifelong learning
The role of information and communications technology (ICT) in widening participation in lifelong learning, and thereby establishing the UK as a bona fide ‘learning society’, is now enshrined in a series of multi-million pound government initiatives such as the University for Industry, learndirect and UK Online. Although politicians and educationalists have been quick to herald such initiatives as revolutionizing post-compulsory education and ext…
Doing IT for the kids
Sociology (81 obras) · Political science (76 obras) · Computer Science (64 obras) · Psychology (52 obras) · Public relations (50 obras) · Pedagogy (42 obras) · Social Media and Politics (30 obras) · Social science (29 obras) · Economics (26 obras) · Engineering (25 obras)