Customised Diversity?

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.