ERIC Number: EJ1143025
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-5692
EISSN: N/A
The "Doublethink" of Data: Educational Performativity and the Field of Schooling Practices
Hardy, Ian; Lewis, Steven
British Journal of Sociology of Education, v38 n5 p671-685 2017
This article provides insights into teachers' and school administrators' responses to the current "fetishisation" of school performance data in Australian schooling. Specifically, the research investigates the accountability practices that emerged in a Queensland metropolitan primary school in response to this broader focus upon performance data. Drawing upon interviews with teachers and school administrators, literature and theorising on educational performativity and data, and Bourdieu's theory of practice, the article reveals how performative, data-driven practices play out at the level of the school. This process reveals a "field of schooling practices" characterised by contradictory and contested logics of deifying, delivering and denying data. We describe this as the "doublethink of data," involving teachers engaging with performative processes for purposes of compliance but without any real sense of the value of doing so. The research reveals the extraordinary energy involved in this work, and cautions against these performative practices and associated technologies.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Elementary School Teachers, Administrators, Educational Practices, Accountability, Metropolitan Areas, Data Analysis, Performance, Evidence Based Practice, Compliance (Legal), High Stakes Tests, National Competency Tests, Academic Achievement, Urban Schools, Semi Structured Interviews
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A