Dean's Speaker Series Featuring Prof. Marina Avelar
Dean's Speaker Series:
Featuring Professor Marina Avelar
Monday, March 23, 2026
Education Building (3700 McTavish), 1st Floor
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Schedule:
10:30 AM Seminar: Disputing Education Futures: the Political Project of Digitalization
12:00 PM Lunch
1:00 PM Workshop: Following Policy: an Introduction to Network Ethnography
Registrants may attend one or both sessions. Light lunch provided to all participants. Registration requested. (Scroll down for the registration link.)
Digitalization has transitioned from a peripheral concern to the center stage of the global educational agenda. Frequently framed as an apolitical, modernizing necessity, digital tools are now embedded across all educational contexts. However, amid the hype, there is also a growing resistance, with concerns over student mental health, data surveillance, and structural inequalities, among other issues. Making sense of this scenario requires an analysis of the actors who set the agendas and the power struggles over the definition of "desirable" educational futures. This lecture will examine the stakeholders and governance structures of digitalization, mapping the networks of technological, financial, and philanthropic organizations currently defining the field. By analyzing their working logics and architectures, we can understand how these actors reorganize educational structures and displace traditional democratic oversight. Ultimately, the session explores how digitalization functions as an active political project rather than a neutral evolution, providing scholars and practitioners with tools to navigate the current dispute over the future of education.
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Marina Avelar is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil.
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