[Air-L] Vacancy: PhD Platformisation of Education (1.0 FTE)

[Niels Kerssens]

Vacancy: PhD Platformisation of Education (1.0 FTE)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY, the Netherlands

HOURS PER WEEK: 38 to 40

FACULTY:  Faculty of Humanities

DEPARTMENT: Media & Culture Studies at Utrecht University

APPLICATION DEADLINE:  15 November 2022

Job description

The department of Media & Culture Studies at Utrecht University recruits a PhD student for a research project on “Platform infrastructures and the shaping of public education” which is part of the larger Spinoza-funded research program Governing the Digital Society, chaired by prof. dr. José van Dijck.

Platformisation of education—the embedding of digital platforms into educational practices—unfolds through increasingly complex integrations of local European educational technology (‘edtech’) companies and global American providers of platform infrastructures like Google (Alphabet), Amazon, and Microsoft. This project will critically investigate how these integrations are shaping and governing public education and use its findings for furthering our understanding of the power of platforms and how they should be governed.

In the project, you will 1) map and analyse technological and organizational integrations of big and local (ed)tech in The Netherlands and/or other European countries); 2) study how big tech cloud infrastructures and strategic partnerships shape the functions and services that third-party companies provide to educational institutions; and 3) contribute methods and/or theories to the field of platform studies based on the empirical findings.

In the second and/or third year of the project you are expected to teach a few classes at the BA-level at the department of Media & Culture studies at a rate of 10 percent of the total workload.

Qualifications

We are looking for an enthusiastic PhD student who:

- has an (R)MA degree in (new) media studies, communications, or a similar research area;

- has excellent research skills, as demonstrated in the (R)MA thesis or any publications assessed as such;

- has an academic interest in and thorough knowledge of platform studies;

- has affinity with the use and development of digital methods (experience is recommended but not a prerequisite, can also be acquired during the PhD trajectory);

- has an excellent command of English (an additional command of Dutch is preferred).

For more information, please see: https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs/phd-platformisation-of-education-10-fte <https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs/phd-platformisation-of-education-10-fte>