Following this introduction, in section 4.2, we explain our conceptual framing, before briefly describing the research background and methodology from which the findings derive as well as some specifications of the datafication of schooling in the German context (section 4.3). In section 4.4, we provide empirical insights into the aforementioned dynamics of (re)fabricating inequality in and through datafication, before ending with a discussion of the findings as well as implications for future research (section 4.5).

This contribution is informed by a sociology of quantification (Espeland & Stevens, 2008; Gorur, 2014; Mau, 2019) as well as a critical data studies perspective (Iliadis & Russo, 2016; Kitchin, 2014, 2016), both having become increasingly popular approaches to critically examining the ongoing datafication and digitalization, within and beyond the field of education (e.g. Hartong & Förschler, 2019; Landri, 2018; Sellar, 2015; Selwyn, 2014; Williamson, 2017). A central goal of these approaches lies in better understanding how relations enacted with and through growing amounts of (digital) data work in practice and which effects they produce (see also Hartong & Förschler, 2019; Perrotta & Selwyn, 2019).