Pathways for social justice in the datafied society: Reconsidering the educational response

Abstract

Can education be a response to the injustices generated by datafication? Although education has been considered a crucial instrument to generate a more democratic and egalitarian society, there is no linear relationship between education and social justice. In the same vein, data literacy as an approach to generate data justice or social justice in the context of datafication should be explored. In this article, I offer a conceptual analysis of the educational response to datafication. Firstly, I introduce the analysis of the metaphors coined to understand the impact of datafication; the analysis then focuses on the tensions and contradictions concerning education¿s contribution to the pursuit of social justice. Secondly, I introduce the debate on the social response to datafication provided by self-organised movements embracing data activism. Thirdly, I consider the relationship between education and social justice to establish the specific connection between data literacy and data justice. I hence question the direct impact of developing literacy as an enabler of change or resistance: data literacy can be implemented in several ways which may or may not support such actions. As a result of this exploration, I contend that, although the educational interventions are evolving towards forms of sensitivity and attention to the problem of datafication, there is a need for integrated approaches that take into account complexity. Indeed, digital infrastructures, regulations, and political contexts shape a problem that goes well beyond the educator's degrees of freedom. Notwithstanding the fact that this set of contingencies might be seen as limitations, it is only by taking them into account that the educational response can be imagined. Notably, the educators' role should go in the direction of expanding knowledge and criticism towards the digital infrastructures, beyond technological competence, to promote counter-hegemonic antagonisms as means to build new contexts of data justice, and therefore, social justice.