Enhancement or impoverishment? Algorithmic management and ‘distance’ education during the pandemic

Abstract

This article aims to develop some interpretative hypotheses on the transformation of education that digitalisation and neoliberalism have brought about in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We draw on changes in the Italian education system to outline the general, structural trend. In order to illustrate how transformations in the education system can be viewed as a process of capitalist valorisation, we present the insights offered by a set of contemporary workerist enquiries and use the theoretical concepts of ‘hyperindustrialisation’ and ‘hybridisation’, drawn also from the research work of Romano Alquati. Our conclusions show how work in education can be reconceptualised in relation to the general process of digital socialisation and its contradictions: we unveil hidden sides of the platformisation of education and provide a disenchanted view of digital solutionism.