From References to Practices: Critical Engagement with Educative Normative Documents through Workshops, Animation, and Chronicle

Abstract

This project applies post-foundational discourse analysis (PDA) as developed by Tomas Marttila to the study of educational normative documents. Thus, bringing a rarely employed theoretical–methodological lens to the field of in-class digital ability development. As such, rather than treating references as neutral background citations, we understand them as discursive building blocks that co-produce what counts as valid knowledge, desirable forms of action, and legitimate professional identities. This is particularly the case in relation to the integration of digital technologies and the shaping of digital languages within schools. Drawing on ongoing research on Chilean policy documents regulating the use of digital technologies in educational institutions, the project will examine how specific referential constellations frame problems, legitimize solutions, and sediment particular epistemic and political commitments.

The project will be implemented through three full-day workshops and public round tables at the University of Cologne (Germany), the University of Borås (Sweden), and Linnaeus University (Sweden). In these spaces, students, early-career researchers, and others will share experiences regarding the analysis of references within educational policy texts, explore how such references shape educational realities, and practice methods for questioning taken-for-granted assumptions. The analytical and pedagogical work emerging from the workshops will be translated into two unconventional research outputs: a cut-motion short animation aimed at wider publics, and an amphibious chronicle that combines academic analysis with narrative and reflective writing.

By combining Education, Library & Information Studies, Multimedia Art, and qualitative methodology across different universities and continents, the project also strengthens sustainable international collaboration while offering transferable tools for critical engagement with normative documents in diverse contexts. Regarding sustainability of the collaborations, to date, the project has already been running for more than three years with researchers currently coming from Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Mexico, the USA and Sweden; and from researchers at different points of their professional trajectories: undergraduate and postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers and other more established researchers. This foundation serves as a base for future endeavors.
 

Fernando Bolaños Zarate

Fernando Bolaños Zarate is a newly appointed research-professor at the Center for Research for the Improvement of Learning (CIMA) at the Faculty of Education of the Universidad del Desarrollo (Chile). Likewise, he is a researcher at the Millennium Nucleus for Digital Inequalities and Opportunities (NUDOS). He holds a research-based doctoral degree and a master’s degree in Education (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile), a master’s degree in Journalism and Public Affairs (CIDE, Mexico), and a licentiate degree in Business Administration (Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico). His work sits at the intersection of digital abilities, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), and library and information studies in schooling systems.

His research examines how digital abilities are conceptualized, taught, and governed, particularly within Chile’s secondary technical-vocational schools, state technical training centers, and libraries. Drawing on post-foundational discourse analysis, document ethnography, narrative studies and phenomenographic approaches, he investigates how public policies, normative guidelines, and institutional standards shape educational practices, professional identities, and students’ experiences with digital environments.

Dr. Bolaños is actively engaged in international and multimedia forms of scholarship, including research stays in Sweden, collaborations with colleagues in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, and the co-production of research podcasts, cut-motion animations, and academic–journalistic chronicles. Bilingual in Spanish and English, he is committed to developing critical, evidence-informed and socially responsive perspectives on digital abilities and educational inequalities in diverse contexts.