Educating the smart city: Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism
Coupled with the ‘smart city’, the idea of the ‘smart school’ is emerging in imaginings of the future of education. Various commercial, governmental and civil society organizations now envisage education as a highly coded, software-mediated and data-driven social institution. Such spaces are to be g...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publishing
2015-11-01
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| Series: | Big Data & Society |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715617783 |
| _version_ | 1819043764215218176 |
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| author | Ben Williamson |
| author_facet | Ben Williamson |
| author_sort | Ben Williamson |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Coupled with the ‘smart city’, the idea of the ‘smart school’ is emerging in imaginings of the future of education. Various commercial, governmental and civil society organizations now envisage education as a highly coded, software-mediated and data-driven social institution. Such spaces are to be governed through computational processes written in computer code and tracked through big data. In an original analysis of developments from commercial, governmental and civil society sectors, the article examines two interrelated dimensions of an emerging smart schools imaginary: (1) the constant flows of digital data that smart schools depend on and the mobilization of analytics that enable student data to be used to anticipate and shape their behaviours; and (2) the ways that young people are educated to become ‘computational operatives’ who must ‘learn to code’ in order to become ‘smart citizens’ in the governance of the smart city. These developments constitute an emerging educational space fabricated from intersecting standards, technologies, discourses and social actors, all infused with the aspirations of technical experts to govern the city at a distance through both monitoring young people as ‘data objects’ and schooling them as active ‘computational citizens’ with the responsibility to compute the future of the city. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T10:01:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-242e526315ed4622805da1fd853dd5d9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2053-9517 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T10:01:58Z |
| publishDate | 2015-11-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Big Data & Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-242e526315ed4622805da1fd853dd5d92022-12-21T19:07:55ZengSAGE PublishingBig Data & Society2053-95172015-11-01210.1177/205395171561778310.1177_2053951715617783Educating the smart city: Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanismBen WilliamsonCoupled with the ‘smart city’, the idea of the ‘smart school’ is emerging in imaginings of the future of education. Various commercial, governmental and civil society organizations now envisage education as a highly coded, software-mediated and data-driven social institution. Such spaces are to be governed through computational processes written in computer code and tracked through big data. In an original analysis of developments from commercial, governmental and civil society sectors, the article examines two interrelated dimensions of an emerging smart schools imaginary: (1) the constant flows of digital data that smart schools depend on and the mobilization of analytics that enable student data to be used to anticipate and shape their behaviours; and (2) the ways that young people are educated to become ‘computational operatives’ who must ‘learn to code’ in order to become ‘smart citizens’ in the governance of the smart city. These developments constitute an emerging educational space fabricated from intersecting standards, technologies, discourses and social actors, all infused with the aspirations of technical experts to govern the city at a distance through both monitoring young people as ‘data objects’ and schooling them as active ‘computational citizens’ with the responsibility to compute the future of the city.https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715617783 |
| spellingShingle | Ben Williamson Educating the smart city: Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism Big Data & Society |
| title | Educating the smart city: Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism |
| title_full | Educating the smart city: Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism |
| title_fullStr | Educating the smart city: Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism |
| title_full_unstemmed | Educating the smart city: Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism |
| title_short | Educating the smart city: Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism |
| title_sort | educating the smart city schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715617783 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT benwilliamson educatingthesmartcityschoolingsmartcitizensthroughcomputationalurbanism |