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Advances in computing, in particular the increasing pervasiveness and importance of digital technologies and digital data, introduce new means to measure, represent and predict social life through numbers. This process has been described as the datafication of social life. Education is one of the domains most noticeably affected. Not least during the recent Covid-19 pandemic we have seen an unprecedented rise of digital and data-driven technologies in and for education. These technologies have fuelled utopian visions about educational futures that facilitate (access to) learning and strengthen participation. At the same time, warnings related to increased surveillance and control as well as reinforced inequalities and systemic discrimination have emerged. 

The starting point for my talk is that the future of education does not simply happen but is made. More specifically, futures of digital innovations and their embedding in aspects of our social, political, cultural, economic and everyday lives are made through expectations, imaginaries, visions and hypes that shape discourses, and define what is thinkable and desirable. They are largely driven by powerful actors such as technology companies, governments, and research and development who determine how (social) problems are framed, and what kinds of social or digital innovations can be sought. However, these “big” futures also depend on “little” futures that happen in the everyday lives of diverse groups of people who experience, perform and negotiate these big futures from different socio-cultural and socio-economic positions (Michael 2017). In my talk I focus on the ways in which big and little futures are imagined and reimagined, made and remade by different educational actors. I conclude with implications for future research in critical data studies of education.