Date of Award
Spring 2021
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Department
Education Policy, Planning, and Administration
Committee Chairperson
David Backer, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Matthew Kruger-Ross, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Ashwina Mosakowski, Ed.D.
Abstract
Abstract
This study is a theoretical examination of surveillance capitalism’s influence on educational technology. While the neoliberal era saw increased teacher accountability measures result in the encouraged expansion of for-profit educational technologies competing with traditional public education, surveillance capitalism’s educational technologies are distinctive. Theory has the power to reveal the existence of values embedded in the designs of these new technologies as well as the ways certain interests act through them. The researcher argues that Andrew Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology presents a framework for critique, intervention, and transformation of these technologies, but it must first be updated with David M. Berry’s (2014) Critical Theory and the Digital. Following this update, a new potential for critique and transformation emerges by introducing conceptual foundations (gestalt switch and choice of a past) and potentials (platform cooperativism and technography and social analytics). The author concludes by presenting new configurations of existing surveillance capitalist educational technologies as well as a concept for a curriculum intended to establish a balance of power between students and these technologies.
Recommended Citation
Rust, Robert, "Code the Code: Surveillance Capitalism, Education, and the Critical Theory of Technology" (2021). West Chester University Doctoral Projects. 99.
https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/all_doctoral/99