A worthy read co-authored by @tamiel The platformization of Public Education: the construction of public policy through networks of visible and invisible actors published in the open access journal The Perpectiva (notable that this CC BY article is available in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French, and German).
The Platformization of Education has become a relevant topic, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, when the digital platforms became common in education. To deal with the emergency, state departments and higher education institutions encouraged the adoption of digital information and communication technologies (ICT), which are incorporated into platform systems such as Google Workspace for Education and Microsoft 365 Education. Previous research has mapped the scale of this phenomenon and identified the actions of governmental, non-governmental and private organizations in this process. However, little is known about how these groups influence governments in agreements and partnerships, which culminate in the contracting of software and technological infrastructure services developed by big tech. This research identified the third sector organizations and other agents who played crucial roles in promoting collaboration agreements, partnership terms, and other legal devices between Google and the State Education Department of Santa Catarina. With a qualitative approach and a methodological focus on Case Studies and Document Analysis, this study seeks to reveal the dynamics and strategies used by the different players who determined educational policies aimed at integrating digital technologies into the basic education curriculum and contracting information services and software by state departments, providing a critical view of the implications of this dynamic for public education in the country
Almeida, E. V. de, Damiati, D., & Amiel, T. (2025). The platformization of Public Education: the construction of public policy through networks of visible and invisible actors. Perspectiva , 43 (4), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-795X.2025.e105685
For more see the Observatório Educação Vigiada “Mapping Surveillance Capitalism in Education”
an initiative by researchers of academia and of social organizations that aims to collect and disseminate information about the platformization of public education in Brazil and South America, and to encourage a debate in society regarding its social and educational impacts. It is part of the Open Education Initiative.
The project was started because of thescarcity of information about the presence of large technology companies - especially those that profit through the collection, processing, and commercialization of user data on their digital platforms and services - in offering educational technologies and storage in data centers - to public educational institutions in Brazil, which hinders research efforts, public discussion about the risks, and the decisions of managers in regards to technology futures in institutions and school systems.
To solve this problem, we created software capable of identifying the storage location of the official e-mails servers of public educational institutions. Tus we can identify and map agreements made between these institutions and systems and these technology companies. The software went through a qualitative validation process through requests done via LAI (similar to FOIA in the United States).
