On the Normativity of Data-Driven Curriculum Policy-Making: A Discursive and Non-affirmative Approach

Abstract

AbstractThis paper raises a critical argument on the normativity of data-driven curriculum policy-making in shaping and reshaping education at all levels along an evaluative rationale. The critique evolves in two steps, the first step is deconstructive in character and draws on the work of Porter (Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995) and research on data-driven education. The second step is reconstructive in character, making use of the non-affirmative theory in education (Benner, On affirmativity and non-affirmativity in the context of theories of education and Bildung. In M. Uljens (Ed.), Non-affirmative Theory of Education and Bildung. Springer, 2023; Uljens, Revista Tempos e Espaços em Educação 18(9): 121–132, 2016; Trans Curric Inquiry 15(2): 4–25, 2018; Uljens & Ylimaki, Nord J Stud Educ Policy 1, 30–43, 2015; Bridging educational leadership, curriculum theory and didaktik: Non-affirmative theory of education. Springer, Cham, 2017) to elaborate on a more reflexive position. The critical examination shows how competitiveness, objectivity, and distance operate as educational ideals within the discourse of data-driven curriculum policy-making, narrowing the educational imagination to what can be expressed in league tables and ranking lists and promoting easy answers to complex questions of what works. These ideals are challenged by non-affirmative theory, which proposes a more reflexive approach to curriculum policy-making, emphasising process rather than outcome and questions rather than answers as drivers of such processes.