In/equalities in digital education policy – sociotechnical imaginaries from three world regions

ABSTRACT

The interplay of digital technologies and inequalities are increasingly discussed in contemporary research, mostly focusing on different forms of digital divides and often addressed as a ‘problem’ that societies should face. Hence, digital education and its governance becomes a major arena for addressing inequalities. In this paper, we offer a cross-country and multi-voiced perspective on how socio-digital inequalities are problematized in digital education policy in three world regions – Latin America, Africa and Europe – studying cases through policy documents in Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Botswana, Germany and Sweden. Our analysis shows how differences and similarities between digital education policy are rooted in various sociotechnical imaginaries that go beyond the national as they are highly situated in spatial–temporal contexts and rooted in historical trajectories. Our contribution aims at a further exploration of the entanglements of educational technology and in/equalities through global conditions and local (hi)stories.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital inequalities
• digital education
• digital policies
• sociotechnical imaginaries
• global and local entanglements

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Jasanoff and Kim updated this concept from a previous one developed earlier, in which the nation state had a key role, while in this version socio technical imaginaries are not limited to and extend beyond the nation states.

2 The search was performed throughout the internet and/or by requests to local authorities and complemented in some cases with interviews with key actors that could further explain details about a set of policies (why they took some decisions instead of others, what were the expected outcomes, and which were the strategies to achieve them, under which political support these policies were eventually put into practice).

3 More in https://www.edu-digitalinequality.org/

4 The program follows a 1 to 1 model, providing each secondary school student with a netbook that belongs to him/her. It also provided netbooks for teachers, principals and equipment for schools.

5 The Mexico team used the software Infranodus for establishing proximities among concepts. A complete analysis of the Mexican case can be read at: Dussel, I. and Williams, F. (in press). Los imaginarios socio técnicos de la política educative digital en México 2012–2021, en Revista Profesorado, Vol. 6, N. 22.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.