Learning to search and learning to slow down or “The quick and the dead”

Abstract

PurposeThis study examines the temporal dynamics shaping our understanding of search in education and the role language plays in legitimising these dynamics. It critiques the way online search is discursively constructed using home-education as a case study, and problematises how particular discourses are privileged, whom this privileging serves, as well as the likely consequences.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs Faircloughian Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as its methodological framework. Search and discursive practices were recorded during observations, search-tasks and interviews with five Australian home-educating families. Discursive features from the Google interface were also analysed.FindingsA discursive privileging of hasty search practices was identified. This was found alongside largely ineffectual search, but participants continued to discursively represent search as fast and easy. The study highlights the complex co-option of discourses surrounding online search that privilege particular temporal and commercial landscapes.Originality/valueThis study contributes new knowledge regarding time as a context for understanding search behaviours, locating the perception of temporal scarcity in education within broader discursive and social structures. To date, no studies are found which investigate the temporal factors surrounding search in home-education. Increasing global reliance upon online search means the findings have broad significance, as does the proliferation of home-education induced by COVID-19. Additionally, while much work problematises the power search engines wield to privilege certain discourses, few investigate the day-to-day discursive practices of searchers affording Google and others this power.