EdTech governance: education policy, power and politics in the era of technocapitalism

• In Event: The Politics of EdTech: Exploring the changing conditions of educational governance in the age of technocapitalism (Part I)

Proposal

The rise of neoliberalism and the consequent adoption of pro-market and managerial reforms has led to profound changes in the traditional forms of government of the public sector (Ball et al., 2017; Verger et al., 2018). Neoliberal globalization has favored a reconfiguration of the role of the state (Dale, 1989; Steiner-Khamsi & Draxler, 2018) through a shift from ‘government to governance’ (Rhodes, 2003) which, far from entailing a disappearance of the state, has meant a change in its traditional functions and a new composition of the political playing field, where multilateral organizations and emerging private actors have been gaining influence in the definition of education policy and the provision of education (Cerny, 1997; Dale, 2007; Mundy & Verger, 2016; Cone & Brøgger 2020). In this context, particular attention has been paid to understanding the role of international organizations (such as the OECD and the World Bank) in shaping the global education agenda, and to studying the mechanisms of influence they deploy to promote the adoption of policies and instruments associated with the global education reform movement (Dale & Robertson, 2012; Mundy & Menashy, 2014; Sahlberg, 2018). In a similar vein, another group of studies has also focused on analyzing the role of non-state actors (Fontdevila et al., 2021; Menashy, 2016; Srivastava & Walford, 2016) and the emergence of new forms of ‘network governance’ through which philanthropic initiatives are promoted (Ball et al., 2017; Avelar & Ball, 2019).

In the education sector, commoditization and digitalization processes are interconnected (Komljenovic, 2022). In recent years, the global spread of technocapitalism (Selwyn, 2023; Williamson, 2021) has favored the emergence of EdTech actors and diffusion of datafication and new rationalities that consolidate a novel model of synthetic governance (Gulson et al., 2022). In this context, BigTech ecosystems are promoting the creation of new forms of digital rentiership (Komljenovic 2021) and are gaining influence over education policy and school systems (Gulson et al., 2022). In the current scenario marked by the growing relevance of EdTech actors in education governance, there is a need to adopt new heuristic devices to analyze recent processes of privatization linked to digitalization and platformization and the role of the State and EdTech actors in the governance of education. Using empirical examples from Denmark, Sweden and Spain and drawing on state theory (Hay et al., 2018), critical cultural political economy (Robertson & Dale, 2020), platform governance studies (Nichols & Dixon-Román, 2024) and affective politics theory (Ahmed, 2016), this conceptual paper aims to shed light on the emerging power dynamics linked to EdTech governance and their implications for public education and democracy.

The article shows that EdTech actors are varied and use a wide range of mechanisms to influence public education systems. In this regard, the article identifies emerging power dynamics linked to affective governance, the intermediary work of BigTech, and lock-in effects (at normative, discursive, data, infrastructure and regulatory levels). The article discusses the state's new role under the EdTech governance regime and the complex interplay of emerging power dynamics.

Authors

• Lluís Parcerisa, University of Barcelona

• Lucas Cone, University of Copenhagen