Sociotechnical Imaginaries in a Postdigital World: Teachers’ Perceptions of Digital Citizenship Education
摘要
This paper examines secondary teachers’ perceptions of digital citizenship education and the sociotechnical imaginaries that shape how they prepare students to live, work, and participate in postdigital societies. Sociotechnical imaginaries are formed through collective visions about the role of technology in society that influence teachers’ perceptions and practices. Both optimistic and pessimistic visions across local and global contexts influence how educators perceive the digital and teach towards envisioned digital futures. The postdigital future classroom serves as both a material and conceptual space where these imaginaries are negotiated and stabilised. This research adapted postdigital methods, mapping and tracing, to analyse data from 11 semi-structured interviews with teachers from across the curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand. Mapping was used to identify and expose alleged ‘realistic’ futures, and tracing was used to examine the influential mechanisms and processes that led to teacher participants’ current understandings and uses of the digital. Findings show that participants’ perceptions of digital citizenship education are based around maximising ‘success’ with digital technologies through encouraging ‘appropriate’ and discouraging ‘inappropriate’ ways of using digital technologies. Yet, findings also recognise the postdigital future classroom as a site where sociotechnical imaginaries are enacted and reshaped in practice. The paper calls for empowering teachers to interrogate the underlying assumptions associated with digital technologies and challenge normative visions of digital futures.