Governing teacher learning through data

Abstract: This article reveals the multiple ways in which data are constituted as a vehicle for governing teachers’ work and learning. To do so, the article focuses upon how teachers’ work and learning were construed in one school in the northern regions of the state of Queensland, Australia, over a two-year period. Drawing upon the concept of governance, including in relation to the sociology of numbers vis-à-vis education, the research reveals how teachers’ work and learning were constituted through practices of: establishing specific ‘targets,’ including various ‘audacious goals’ for school and national testing; focusing upon ‘aligning’ all forms of school, regional and national data collected within the school, and; participating in various ‘data conversations’ about specific students with senior members of staff, particularly those students whose data indicated they could improve above designated thresholds. While the research reveals how some teachers found such practices beneficial for their own learning to improve their practice with students, it also shows how this learning was always and everywhere framed within a broader discourse of data, and how this data-centric focus came to constitute what was valued about their work and learning, and that of their students.

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