Edtech platforms from below: a family ethnography of marginalized communities and their digital learning post-pandemic

Abstract

In this article, we reveal how students in low-income communities in India use and ascribe meaning to dominant proprietary EdTech platforms and conferencing tools through family ethnographies. We explore how these platforms and associated online learning tools influence existing educational practices and lead to the emergence of new forms of learning. Proprietary platforms are situated at the intersection of neoliberal-capitalist forces and welfare policies of public schooling and share a productive association with students’ everyday lives, identities, and cultural realities. Understanding the performative effects of these platforms requires that we examine them as part of broader socio-technical assemblages. We argue that EdTech platforms should not be built simply on principles of standardization and scalability. EdTech platforms are designed to standardize education and make the model scalable, thus undermining students’ social relationships and place-based learning needs. Such a design and approach have an associated gender and class cost.