Researching Education Through Actor–Network Theory

Since its emergence in the early 1980s, actor–network theory (ANT) has inspired radical studies in sociology, technology, cultural geography, organization and management, environmental planning and health care. Yet its profile in the field of educational research has to date been limited, despite the innovative work of educational researchers who have pushed ANT to open new questions and methods. Bringing together researchers from the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, Researching Education Through Actor–Network Theory focuses attention on this innovative work, illustrating myriad and provocative actor–network approaches. These enable a unique analysis of educational issues and reconfigure our understandings of educational change.

Notes on Contributors vii Foreword viii Introduction Tara Fenwick & Richard Edwards ix 1 Devices and Educational Change Jan Nespor 1 2 Translating the Prescribed into the Enacted Curriculum in College and School Richard Edwards 23 3 Unruly Practices: What a sociology of translations can offer to educational policy analysis Mary Hamilton 40 4 ANT on the PISA Trail: Following the statistical pursuit of certainty Radhika Gorur 60 5 Assembling the ‘Accomplished’ Teacher: The performativity and politics of professional teaching standards Dianne Mulcahy 78 6 Reading Educational Reform with Actor–Network Theory: Fluid spaces, otherings, and ambivalences Tara Fenwick 97 Index 117

Tara Fenwick is Professor of Professional Education in the School of Education at the University of Stirling, UK. She was previously Head of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada. The director of ProPEL, an international network researching professional practice, education and learning, she has a particular interest in professionals’ knowledge sources and strategies, and the changing nature of professional responsibility. Richard Edwards is Professor of Education and Head of the School of Education at the University of Stirling, and previously spent 12 years as a lecturer, senior lecturer and reader with the Open University. He has written extensively on adult education and lifelong learning.   Tara Fenwick and Richard Edwards are the authors of Actor–Network Theory in Education (2010) and, with Peter Sawchuk, of Emerging Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Sociomaterial (2011).