Participation and co-design in digital education research: navigating between instrumental and critical approaches

Hartong, Sigrid; Brandau, Nina

doi:10.1080/02680939.2026.2700759

Participation and co-design in digital education research: navigating between instrumental and critical approaches

Publication date

2026-07-10

Document type

Forschungsartikel

Author

Hartong, Sigrid

Brandau, Nina

Organisational unit

Transformation von Governance in Bildung und Gesellschaft

DTEC.bw

DOI

10.1080/02680939.2026.2700759

URI

https://openhsu.ub.hsu-hh.de/handle/10.24405/24201

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-105044271601

Project

Smarte Schulen

Publisher

Routledge, Taylor & Francis

Series or journal

Journal of Education Policy

ISSN

0268-0939

Peer-reviewed

✅

Part of the university bibliography

✅

Language

English

Keyword

BMBF

Co-design

Digital education

Germany

Participation

Policy–research–practice nexus

Public research

dtec.bw

Abstract

Over the past decade, there has been a boom of participatory as well as co-design-oriented approaches (also) in the field of digital education. While much of that boom has been following a mainly instrumental understanding of participation and co-design, there has also evolved a growing body of critical research, devoted to the normativities and political dynamics of the approaches, including the performative impact of technologies. This paper investigates how such different understandings of participation and co-design manifest in a key area of digital education policy implementation: publicly funded research (projects). Using the case of Germany, we analyse the evolvement and characteristics of participation and co-design-oriented digital education research projects over the past decade. We investigate online material on ministry research schemes and associated projects as well as conducted in-depth interviews with experts leading or working in co-design projects. While the findings point to a persisting tension between instrumental and more critical understandings and operationalisations of participation and co-design, they also indicate a slow, but visible trend towards more reflexive, creative and speculative methods and projects.

Description

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/)

Version

Online first

Access right on openHSU

Metadata only access