What knowledge claims: the teaching profession meets algorithmic management

Ever since education moved into schools, instruction has been considered the province of teachers and their pupils. Our contribution discusses how their role complementarity holds up when algorithms enter the classroom. Building on prior work, we argue that the algorithmic management of learning does not replay the standard conflict between professionals and managerial oversight, the bickering typical of bureaucratic organisations. Algorithmic management involves a different conflict because it is not simply a different way of managing professional activity but claims to carry out the activities themselves. It materialises in codes and protocols—automated precepts that are antithetical to the judgment professionals exercise when deciding what, if any, precept applies in a given situation. We depart from current literature on professional expertise and platformisation, which has understood this evolution as either digital surveillance or unwanted automation, threatening to strip professional care of its humanity. Instead, we examine three public encounters as illustrative of the classification work in which the competing knowledge claims of teachers and engineers are tried out and tested.