Current Issue
Vol. 21 No. 1 (2025): Special issue: Customised Diversity? Education, capitalism and diversity in the digital condition
Cover illustration: Lilli Riettiens, using a licensed version of Adobe Firefly via the University of Mainz
Valentin Dander, Professional Association for Media Education, Media Literacy and Communication Culture (GMK), Bielefeld, valentin.dander@gmail.com
Lilli Riettiens, Institute of Educational Science, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, l.riettiens@uni-mainz.de
Rachel Shanks, Interdisciplinary Institute, University of Aberdeen, r.k.shanks@abdn.ac.uk
Nina Grünberger, Professor for Education in the Context of Digitality, Technical University Darmstadt, nina.gruenberger@tu-darmstadt.de
Theo Hug, Department of Media, Society and Communication, University of Innsbruck Theo.Hug@uibk.ac.at https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1279-623X
The notion of diversity is widely accepted as a positive value in Europe and beyond. However, in the context of current capitalist relations in general, diversity has long since developed into a marketable slogan and has been customised as a technology of corporate management. Under the formula “customised diversity?”, this special issue addresses a core ambivalence of capitalist markets. In this regard, the educational context is particularly interesting as Big Tech and for-profit educational industries are pushing into the ed tech (educational technology) sector, seeking to install mono-cultures of digital infrastructures of teaching and learning.
This issue brings together different traces of capitalism in the digital age through all types of education and media and across several European countries. The empirical and theoretical contributions examine how capitalist logics shape educational technologies, policies, and research practices, often prioritising datafication, measurability, and optimisation. They ask how media education can support democratic, equitable, and sustainable futures, and how researchers can challenge the reproduction of capitalist structures in education through critical, utopian, or subversive practices.
This collection of articles brings together different traces of capitalism in the digital age through all types of education and media and across several European countries. We hope that you find this diversity of scholarship and the collection of research on the past and present alongside suggestions for the future of capitalism of interest.
Published:
2025-06-19