When data speaks, what issues are silenced? Evidence, statistics, and curriculum

Abstract

This paper presents a discussion that operates within the tension between deconstructionist philosophy—centered on the event as a rupture of stable meanings—and statistical practices in education, which seek to standardize data and suppress uncertainties. It argues that statistics, as a tool for curriculum design, reduce social complexities to homogeneous patterns, rendering alterity and adversity invisible, as well as neglecting contingency and the unpredictability of events in educational and curricular policies. We contend that the undecidability of the event displaces the notion of data neutrality in describing reality, exposing the erasure of uncertainty as an effect of power. Combining an interdisciplinary review (philosophy, statistics, curriculum studies) with an interpretation of evidence-based policies, this paper argues that deconstruction allows for a rethinking of educational assessments and their effects on the curriculum. This argument aligns with the defense of hybrid models for educational policy that integrate quantitative rigor while recognizing uncertainty not as a failure but as an ontological condition of education and curriculum, thus contributing to a more critical and democratic debate in the field.