The Education RESET Project

The swift move to remote teaching and learning, which relied heavily on digital technologies to continue to perform regular (normal) schooling generated new-old forms of vulnerability and exclusion. Encapsulated by the concept of digital divide, these new forms of (digital) inequities were reproduced along the usual identity markers of ability, class, gender, and geographical positions.

The Education RESET project builds on Phase 1 DIGITAL in a time of Coronavirus project, which analysed how at the onset of the pandemic socio-economic, political and historical conditions reproduced new forms of inequalities through the digital divide and identified instances of creativity and inclusion through remote and hybrid teaching and learning. The RESET project further developed this preliminary analysis by focusing on two educational communities, two alternative accounts on how to RESET education practices and thinking that conceptualise digital inclusion according to solutionist and growth approaches. The first alternative is one association based in the South of Italy that works in partnership with schools to contrast dropout and foster inclusion in the classroom. The second one is a non-governmental organisation in Malaysia that provides holistic care and education for urban poor children, children from disadvantaged, refugee and migrant communities. The project developed findings along two lines:

• First, informed by post-structural tools, in particular assemblage theory, and de-ableist and culturally sustainable pedagogies, the project gathered evidence from selected case-studies through focus groups with teachers to explore their experiences of digital pedagogies during the series of lockdowns, and identified the modalities that interrupt the reproduction of exclusion in the wake of the pandemic.
• Second, it undertook interviews with professionals and participants observations to explore their experiences and desires in relation to technologies and foster children and young people's development of digital skills.

The study produced internationally relevant outcomes to inform teachers’ ways of working with digital technologies that are inclusive and decolonialised; contributed to countries’ policy agenda drawing upon children’s future digital expectations and educational desires; and revised definitions of educational ‘inclusion’ informed by the advent of digital and non-digital technologies that are context-relevant and pedagogy-appropriate.

Further information

If you are a teacher or parent of a student currently at school and would like more information or to be involved in our research please do not hesitate to contact us.

• Principal Investigator: Professor Julie Allan
• Research Lead: Dr Francesca Peruzzo