In this project, taking a socio‑technical approach has involved examining technologies themselves (how they function, what they claim to achieve, their embedded values, and the potential risks of bias), alongside analysing the contexts in which they are used including how teachers and students engage with them in everyday practice.
In our new article published in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, we discuss our development of social-technical audits to help capture this complexity. We suggest that the socio-technical audit – a sustained, systematic and reflexive process for examining both the sociological and technical dynamics underpinning the use of educational technologies – offers a methodological bridge between the study of everyday educational practices alongside critical interrogation of EdTech.
Through an illustrative case study, we not only highlight the analytic value of incorporating socio-technical audits within ethnographic inquiry, but demonstrate how the values embedded in educational technologies emerge in school settings and shape pedagogical practices.
Full reference:
Couceiro, L., Eynon, R., and Hakimi, L. (2026). “Uncovering Edtech’s Embedded Values: Making the Case for Socio-Technical Audits in Ethnographic Inquiry.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 57 no. 3: e70091. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.70091.
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