Datafication of education and algorithm (un)fairness in education : another form of oppression and repression

Abstract

Critical data literacy and datafication of education are reviewed. The wider context of datafication is surveillance capitalism. Educational data and learning analytics are commercialized to make a profit, which poses a challenge to the public interests of the educational system. We propose that educational phenomena that cannot be datafied are just as important as datafied phenomena. Although data utopians celebrated the emergence of big data practice, the tragic reality is closer to what data dystopians feared. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.