The platformization and financialization of educacion in brazilian state public networks in 2024

Abstract

The current morphology of capitalism involves financialization and platformization mediated by digital technologies. In education, the insertion of platforms and other technologies with mechanisms for capturing teacher and student data has been referred to by researchers as the platformization of education (Poell; Van Djick, 2018). This phenomenon intensified with the COVID-19 pandemic, and even after the end of social isolation, various digital platforms and tools have been used in public education, with diverse implications for education. Thus, this work aims to contribute to the debate by mapping and analyzing the presence of private and financialized educational platforms in Brazilian state education systems in 2024. The methodology for data collection and mapping of educational platforms involved requests for information from state education departments based on the Access to Information Law (Brazil, 2011), as well as internet searches. The results indicate the presence of private and financialized platforms in virtually all state education systems, with national and foreign capital and companies, whether bigtechs, edtechs, or financialized educational corporations, constituting an important business strategy, whether through the appropriation of public funds or data capture. Based on an analysis of the advertising on some platforms, we found a technocratic perspective focused on performance assessments, as well as the transformation of the teaching-learning process and greater control and oversight over teaching work.