معرفی
Annina Förschler is a Researcher at Helmut Schmidt University, affiliated with the Professorship for Transformation of Governance in Education and Society since August 2020. Previously, she served as a research assistant in the DFG-funded project Educational Data Management (2017–2020), focusing on digitalization in educational governance across Germany and the USA.
Her educational background includes:
- Master of Arts in Educational Science (2012–2015, University of Hamburg), specializing in General Educational Science and Participation/Lifelong Learning, with a thesis on Educational Landscapes as Neoliberal Governance
- Bachelor of Arts in Sociology (2007–2011, University of Hamburg), including an Erasmus semester at the University of Copenhagen, with a thesis analyzing governmental practices via Foucault’s governmentality
Förschler’s research critically examines the intersection of digitalization, policy networks, and neoliberal governance in education. She investigates how data infrastructures reshape state authority, the growing influence of EdTech corporations, and the economization of educational systems through governmentality frameworks. Her work emphasizes power dynamics in digital monitoring systems and advocates for critical, transparent engagement with educational technologies.
Analysis of her 15 most recent publications reveals a cohesive trajectory: early work (2018–2019) established foundations in German digital policy networks, while 2020–2021 outputs expanded to comparative analyses (Germany/USA), pandemic-driven EdTech acceleration, and critical examinations of data interoperability. Her 2024 research introduces innovative methodologies like hackathon analysis to study emergent policymaking forms, consistently highlighting tensions between technological efficiency and democratic governance.
Förschler actively contributes to the academic community through memberships in the German Society for Educational Science (DGfE), PRIVATOPIA (focusing on European education privatization), and KriDiFoSch (critical digitality research). She co-founded the UNBLACK THE BOX initiative in 2019 to equip educators with critical digital literacy tools.
As a doctoral candidate, she has taught seminars at Helmut Schmidt University including Digital Education Governance (2021) and New Governance Mechanisms in Education Digitalization (2021), translating her research into pedagogical practice. Her DFG project involvement provided grant experience in large-scale comparative research on educational data systems.
She leads the UNBLACK THE BOX network, collaborating with researchers, teachers, and practitioners to develop frameworks for critically evaluating EdTech tools. This initiative produces practical resources addressing transparency, health impacts, and pedagogical adaptability of digital platforms, directly influencing school-level technology adoption.
