COVID-19 and Teaching Work: New Socio-Material Associations in a Technical School in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract

This article analyzes the socio-material dimension of teaching work during the COVID-19 pandemic in a technical school in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. Using Actor Network Theory, it critically describes how human and non-human actants (as is the case of educational digital platforms) deployed association strategies to sustain schooling during the period of preventive and compulsory social isolation (ASPO) and that of preventive and mandatory social distancing (DISPO) in the years 2020 and 2021. It adopted a methodological strategy that included, on the one hand, ethnographic stays at school before the pandemic, and, on the other, visual research collaboration and the use of digital research tools during the closure of schools and the interrupted return to classrooms. The article contributes to the emerging field of critical studies on educational platforms, distancing itself from views that interpret technologies as mere tools or as capable of transforming social and pedagogical relations by their simple presence. It shows that certain associations failed and that others were able to stabilize, institutionalize and alter various aspects of teaching work -thus deploying unanticipated educational innovations.