ABSTRACT
The proliferation of digital technologies and data analytics in recent years appears to challenge the legitimacy of the social sciences to interpret and comment on social practices. Considered as a 'field', educational data science can be understood analytically through Bourdieu's notion of 'fields of power', particularly as it has been applied in relation to education policy and methodological innovation. The figure of the algorithmist is now being brought into being in the field of education in the shape of the education data scientist. The methodological expertise of education data science is producing new practices that can be enacted within educational institutions such as schools and universities. Mirroring sociological concerns that social science is increasingly being performed in the in-house research departments of wealthy social media companies, education data science is displacing educational research to well-connected networks of specialist labs and research centres.
