Join us for the launch of Diego Santori’s The Quantified School: Pedagogy, Subjectivity, and Metrics. This new book examines how data are incorporated into schools’ everyday routines, entangled with teachers and pupils’ sense of self, their experience of embodiment, their acquisition of knowledge and meaning making, and their social relations.

In a context of ever-growing demands of quantification and accountability on schools, the question of whether intense exposure to quantified forms of meaning and sense-making in school settings could develop into metrics-driven dispositions or attachments has become increasingly important. Contemporary demands on schools for calculation, prediction, and comparison by the use of accountability tools like high-stakes testing, league tables, consequential inspection ratings and ‘progress’ measures evidence the relentless presence of quantification in teaching and learning. With a focus on Chile as a critical case of neoliberal experimentation, this book develops a theoretically rich analysis of quantification and subjectivity, tracing new linkages between educational policy and everyday life in schools, diving deeper into ‘ordinary’ schools as they encounter and navigate quantified forms of recognition. This book argues the importance of bridging political, sociological and anthropological literatures together with affect and subjectivity theories to understand the complex ways in which standardisation, optimisation, automation, and surveillance crystallise into quantification-based forms of intelligibility.

The evening will begin with a short presentation by the author, Dr Diego Santori, introducing the book’s exploration of how schools are interpellated by demands for quantification differently, and their implications for teaching and learning. Following this, a panel discussion will reflect on the book’s key themes and their broader implications, offering an opportunity for rich dialogue and debate on the connection between quantification, schooling and subjectivity.

The panel includes:

• Stephen Ball, Emeritus Professor of Sociology of Education at UCL Institute of Education.
• Claudia Lapping, Professor of Psychosocial Studies and Education at UCL Institute of Education
• Rocío Fernández Ugalde, Postdoctoral Fellow at the OSUN Global Forum

The discussion will be chaired by Dr Maren Elfert (Senior Lecturer in International Education, King’s College London). The event will feature an open Q&A session and conclude with a wine reception, providing a space for informal conversations and connections. Join us for an engaging discussion and a celebration of this important contribution to the cultural politics of education.

Run of events

17:30 Arrival
18:00 Presentation starts
19:00 Q&A
19:30 Wine reception

About the speakers

Claudia Lapping

Claudia Lapping is Professor of Psychosocial Studies and Education at UCL Institute of Education, and is currently in the final stages of clinical training at the Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Her research has explored the use of psychoanalytic ideas and techniques in social science research methodologies and her current project is a collaboration with early career researchers and psychoanalysts: 'Promoting a conversation between qualitative psychosocial research and psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice'. Publications include: the edited collection Freud, Lacan, Zizek and Education: Exploring Unconscious Investments in Policy and Practice (Routledge, 2020); 'Re-Reading Riviere’s “Womanliness as a Masquerade”' in the Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies (2022); and Psychoanalysis in Social Research. Shifting theories and reframing concepts (Routledge, 2011).

Stephen Ball

Stephen J Ball is Emeritus Professor of Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University College London, where he was previously the Karl Mannhiem Professor of Sociology of Education. He is a British Academy Fellow, a Fellow of the Society of Educational Studies, and a laureate of Kappa Delta Phi. He holds visiting positions at the Universities of Copenhagen and Glasgow and has honorary degrees from the Universities of Turku, Leicester, and The Education University of Hong Kong. His main areas of interest are in sociologically informed education policy analysis and the relationships between education, education policy and social class. He has written 20 books and had published over 140 journal articles.

Rocío Fernández Ugalde

Rocío Fernández Ugalde is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the OSUN Global Forum, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. She holds a PhD in Sociology of Education from the University of Cambridge, where she specialized in education policy and teachers' work in Chile. She is a member of the Working Group on Educational Policies and the Right to Education at the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and a founding member of the Latin American Research Collective in Education at Cambridge (CLAREC). An interdisciplinary researcher with a background in education policy and cultural studies, her work and writings focus on the links between education, labour, social reproduction, and social movements.

Dr Diego Santori

Diego Santori is a Senior Lecturer in education and society at King’s College London. His research interests include the relationships between education policy, economics and subjectivity and the ways in which their interpenetration produce new cultural forms and practices. His work has appeared in leading academic journals and major international collections such as the World Yearbook of Education 2016, the International Handbook on Ethnography of Education‏, and the Handbook of Global Policy and Policy-Making in Education. He has also served as a panel member for prestigious funding bodies such as UKRI, as Associate Editor for Critical Studies in Education, board member of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, and advisory board member of Defend Digital Me.