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Cross, Simon
(2024).
URL: https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/cies/cies2...
Abstract
The appropriation and subversion of the practice and rhetoric of those in power by those seeking reform has a long history in social and political movement. This covert form of protest can often mask change by taking what is ‘permitted’ and using it as a vehicle to work towards critical change in education or as means to achieve a desirable outcome by an alternate route. Within educational practice – the organising, framing, delivering, and validating teaching and learning –acts of reform, challenge or change may represent articulations of protest. Indeed, two hundred years ago, the transformative role of educational was intimately linked to grand social ambitions, such as that for a new equitable social system envisioned in the UK and later US by pioneer philanthropist Robert Owen (‘A New View of Society’ written in 1813) and the co-operative, social, feminist and Chartist movements in which he and his supporters were involved. At that time, agitators for social change appropriated middle-class practices associated with the organisation and conduct of the public sphere and the vocabulary and technology of education.
Situated in the present, this paper will explore the theme of appropriation and subversion with respect to the use of digital badges in less well-resourced contexts. Digital badges are a relatively recent educational technology intended to recognise achievement, skills, status, or competencies and, like many educational technologies, whilst originally developed by those with resources and influence in one context, are most often (re)used by those elsewhere with less. It is in the process of reuse that a space for empowerment through appropriation and unanticipated adaption occurs.
The paper will draw on several sources including research conducted in India by the presenters since 2019 into the use of digital badges to support/teacher professional development. This research includes a study in Assam with teachers from over 220 public schools conducted as a collaboration between The Open University, UK and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data from surveys (n=120), VLE use and field notes and interviews, the paper will consider four aspects of digital badges in turn: imagery and iconography, credit and capital, identity and affirmation, and the blurring of the digital and the real/physical. For each, the operation, reception, and use of digital badges in a context different from that in which the technology was originally conceived will be examined and described. This will identify how the technology is being appropriated and subverted by local users seeking to empower local educators, drive critical change, and strengthen professional community in hybrid ways.
Maintaining the focus on place and context, the paper will explore the significance of what could be termed a process of ‘spatial translation’ to the success or failure of digital badge implementation. This topic will be situated within a broader framework for scaling digital badges in educational contexts. In conclusion, the paper will highlight that more needs to be understood about local articulations and visions for educational change, how these coalesce, and how these are articulated to work around those in authority. It will also make a tentative attempt to reflect on historical parallels with early educational innovation associated with social movements. Finally, It will consider whether researchers need to be more historically and spatially aware and whether there remain lessons still to be learnt.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
