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Mercer, Ralph
(2022).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.00014735
Abstract
This study investigates the conceptual framework of ‘Habitus of Technology’ as a socially constructed way of knowing, which privileges specific modes of thinking about technologies of learning. A literature review revealed a gap in understanding how our complex relationship with technology constraints professional agency and decision-making.
To investigate these phenomena, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two groups: the first was educational technology practitioners, and the second were futurists who had explored the future of education. The critical futures methodology and Causal Layered Analysis were used to analyse the participants’ narratives and reveal the beliefs and attitudes that constituted their Habitus of Technology. This revealed a single difference in the narratives between the narratives of the two groups of participants. However, the numerous similarities constituted a common habitus. The analysis also indicated that the Habitus of Technology approach constraints our understanding because it is grounded in humanist philosophy, which creates a binary separation between us and the world around us. Accordingly, in line with the methodology of the critical future, this study offers an alternative means of approaching the Habitus of Technology constraints. In this case, a ‘posthumanist’ reading is offered as a process of interrogation of the commonly accepted modes of thinking that support the Habitus of Technology.
The study supports the existence of a Habitus of Technology at both individual and group levels that limit the participants’ agency and vision of the potential of technology in the future of education.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
