Toward a digital sociology of school

Digital technologies are now an integral feature of schools and schooling in ways that would have been hard to imagine even a few years previously. Devices such as tablets, laptops, and smartphones support a diversity of learning practices within the schoolhouse, at home, and all points in between. Classrooms and other formal learning environments are awash with digital hardware and software, and a growing amount of pedagogic work is conducted on a "virtual" basis. In addition, the day-to-day management and administration of schools is underpinned by software systems that support and structure the actions of students, teachers, administrators, leaders, and parents in a variety of ways. Notwithstanding the complexity of these sociotechnical conditions, "the digital" is now an expected and largely unremarkable feature of the contemporary school. As such, the proliferation of digital technologies into school clearly merits renewed and sustained sociological attention. This chapter teases out some of the key ways in which digital sociology can help us make better sense of contemporary school.