Her research examines the injustices that can arise from the use of technologies in learning and education.
Professor Eynon, who holds a joint academic post at the Oxford Internet Institute and the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, said: ‘I am delighted and honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and join such an esteemed community. I am indebted to my academic colleagues, students, and collaborators from policy and practice who made this recognition possible.’
The Academy’s Fellowship comprises around 1,700 leading social scientists, elected for excellence in their fields and substantial contributions to social science for public benefit through independent peer review.
Rebecca Eynon is a Sociologist of Education whose work sits at the intersection of education, technology and society. In response to the uncritical hype that surrounds digital technologies and AI, her empirical research highlights people’s experiences of using technologies for learning across the life course and examines how and why injustices can arise from their design and use.
At the Department of Education, she convenes the Critical Digital Education Research Group, fostering sociological scholarship on the role of technology in learning and education nationally and internationally. She sits on the editorial board of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, Information and Learning Sciences, and Learning, Media and Technology, and was co- editor of Learning, Media and Technology from 2011-2021.
She is a steering board member for the Swiss National Science Foundation Digital Transformation Programme, which investigates and presents policy options for digital and social change, and an international investigator for the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, which is dedicated to creating research informed positive digital experiences for children.
Professor Eynon currently leads the Towards Equity Focused Approaches to EdTech Project, a three-year study funded by the ESRC Education Programme. Through ethnographic research in schools, the project examines how EdTech is used in practice to explore how technology can address – or inadvertently reinforce – inequities in education. The team also works with academics, EdTech companies, policymakers, teachers, students and other members of the education community to inform more socially just and equitable design and implementation of technology in school settings.
Professor Eynon is widely published and has engaged with a variety of public, private and third sector organisations concerned with issues of inequity and technology. Her work has been cited by policy actors such as the Sutton Trust, the British Academy, the Royal Society, UNESCO, the OECD, the European Union, the United Nations, the World Bank, and varied national and regional governments. In the UK, where most of her research is located, she has given evidence to the Education Select Committee and provided expert input intoresearch by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology and the Government’s Open Innovation Team.
Professor Eynon teaches on the MSc in Education (Digital and Social Change) at the Department of Education and the MSc in Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute. Across both departments, she supervises DPhil students whose research focuses on digital education, technology and social justice.
“The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s second-oldest university in continuous operation.”
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