The devalued, demoralized and disappearing teacher: The nature and effects of datafication and performativity in schools

In this article, we highlight the specificity of teachers’ practices in an era of increased attention to reified measures of data as evidence of student learning. Drawing upon Kemmis et al.’s (2014) notion of educational practice as characterized by specific ‘sayings,’ ‘doings’ and ‘relatings,’ under particular ‘cultural-discursive,’ ‘material-economic’ and ‘socio-political’ conditions, we analyze teachers’ work practices in two public schools in south-east Queensland. We reveal granular details about how teachers’ engagement with reified forms of student evaluation data under broader neoliberal policy conditions influenced their personal and professional identity as teachers. We argue that engagement with such data processes under these conditions leads to not only their demoralization but also the devaluing of teachers’ work, and ultimately, what we claim to be the very ‘disappearance’ of the teacher – the expunging of relational, educative interactions that enable genuine student engagement and learning. The consequence is an eviscerated form of schooling that may jeopardize students’ long-term academic and social development.

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