Page 74 - Looking_after_school

Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in education

and tendencies. Several phenomena that are usually understood as
‘natural’ within the context of social or developmental psychology
(think of the desire for recognition/acknowledgment, or the search
for identity) can be seen in light of a very specific configuration of
techniques, instruments, and mechanisms. The desire to be recog-
nised, or the need thereof, is most likely not an innate desire, but a
desire that is both the effect and instrument of a power structure.
Furthermore, this configuration and the need for recognition are
shaped in a very specific way within the architecture of the learning
environment. The learner will profile themself mostly in terms of
their profile of competencies (the learner and the acquired compe-
tencies which personalise them). But also, several other features of
the profile can be decisive in so far as they influence the efficiency
and effectiveness of the learning process. When it is about someone’s
competence profile, the need for recognition first of all relates to the
need for societal validation of the acquired competencies. Stated
simply, the learner wants to know what competencies have (added)
value. The acknowledgment of competencies refers in other words
to the degree of employability or added value of these competencies.
When the competencies that are acquired by the learner coincide
with validated competencies, the societal employability of the per-
son is guaranteed. The recognition/acknowledgment of competen-
cies is made possible today by all sorts of qualifications and specific
criteria of qualification, as well as several types of earned badges.
Qualification refers in this sense to a formalised procedure of rec-
ognition/acknowledgment, and the systems of open badges are the
result of creating markets for qualification. The desire for recog-
nition/acknowledgment by the learner is shown in the desire for
employability, and thus in the need for qualifications or for other
recognised proof such as badges. For the learner, qualifications and
badges take on the role of applause.

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