Call for Contributions: Postdigital Participation in Education

In recent years, digital technology has become an integral part of everyday practices – a condition that has been labeled ‘postdigital’ in a number of academic publications. Although this label is ambiguous, most authors aim to overcome the assumption that ‘progress’ is driven by digital technology and society, and that culture and the economy have to adapt to the new situation. Assuming society and/or culture to be postdigital means to focus on the entanglement of the digital and analogue, material and symbolic, technological and societal. In this approach, the prefix ‘post’ does not mean that digitality has become irrelevant or been ‘overcome’. Instead, it contextualizes the digital, locating it in a set of relations within specific media constellations. The ‘post’ thus invites critical analysis of interwoven, messy elements and interconnections.

These interrelationships and correlations are at the analytical focus of the envisaged publication, with a particular interest in participation. As the COVID-19 pandemic has made obvious, contemporary media constellations can facilitate communication and collaboration for remote, isolated or less mobile people, but they also require material resources like technical devices and connectivity as well as the knowledge and ability to use them fluently. Participation in the ‘postdigital condition’ is also always already woven into power relations and political economies.

Against this backdrop, education plays a crucial role. On the one hand, educational institutions and practices are deeply affected by the recent transformations of media technologies and practices. At the same time, educational institutions like schools and universities are supposed to enable people to participate in today’s media practices in an informed and reflected way. It is therefore important to analyze how and under what conditions teachers and students can participate in contemporary media constellations.

We invite contributions to this peer-reviewed, open access edited volume which reflect on postdigital participation in education, including, but not limited to, the following issues:

Theoretical:

• Which theoretical impulses help to theorize postdigital participation?
• How can theories on participation, postdigitality, media practices, design research, and education be related to each other?

Methodological:

• How can participatory research on postdigital media practices be conducted?
• What opportunities and preconditions do postdigital media practices provide for research methods?

Empirical:

• What are the conditions for participating in postdigital educational media practices and what kind of inequities go along with them?
• How have postdigital participatory practices unfolded in educational settings, and what do we learn from these practices?

Design:

• How do different stakeholders participate in designing postdigital educational media constellations?
• How has education helped people to participate in a critical and reflexive way in their everyday postdigital practices?

Please send your abstract of max. 500 words by 15 January 2022 to Wendy Kopisch (kopisch@gei.de). For informal inquiries about potential ideas for contributions, please contact the editors (macgilchrist@gei.de or andreas.weich@gei.de)

Your chapter of 7,000 words should be submitted by 31 August 2022.

The volume will be published both in print and open access. It is envisaged for publication in the academic book series of the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI) with Palgrave Macmillan: Palgrave Studies in Educational Media.