ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a socio-material approach in education. Early, or classic, ANT ideas are outlined, focusing on networks and how these are explored in education research literature and seminal works that have influenced this research. The chapter then moves into a discussion of ‘after-ANT’ and multiple worlds and of tensions in this field, both theoretical and practical. Fenwick, Edwards and Sawchuk argue that ANT is not a theory about learning but is rather a method to understand how effects, such as knowledge, identities, powerful centres, and practices, are produced through assemblages of heterogeneous human and non-human elements. The term ‘black-box’ has been used in ANT to describe how processes become stable and immutable, and any internal complexity becomes taken for granted. Finally, the chapter explores ANT in practice, and how language needs to be considered in ANT descriptions.
