The governance of teachers’ time allocation and data usage through a learning management system: a biopolitical perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the intricate relationship between state ambitions and institutional disciplining in the context of managers and teachers’ time allocation and data usage. Using a specific learning management system (LMS) as a case study in Danish public elementary schools and drawing on Foucault’s theory, we examine how governance through the LMS, constituted as disciplinary power and surveillance techniques, shapes time allocation and data usage in schools. Our study is based on an analysis of policy documents and qualitative interviews, identifying discourses about educational ambitions and intentions with the LMS. Our analysis has three perspectives. First, we argue that the Danish state’s educational ambitions are characterized as biopolitics grounded in economic imperatives and the need for a well-educated population. Second, we argue that the enactment of a mandatory LMS in schools manifests as governance to secure state ambitions. Finally, we argue that the disciplinary power and surveillance techniques embedded in the design of the LMS shape teachers’ time allocation and data usage in accordance with state ambitions. Thus, our analysis contributes a theoretical perspective to develop a critical understanding of how state ambitions for governance through digital tools shape possibilities for practice among actors within the educational field.

KEYWORDS:

• Biopolitics
• institutional disciplining
• learning management system
• time allocation
• data usage

Introduction

From the academic year 2016/17, Danish primary and lower secondary school teachers were required to use a learning management system (LMS) as the foundation for their teaching (Municipalities, 2016). The LMS is a versatile platform that facilitates integration of diverse technologies, including virtual learning environments and resource-sharing tools (Jewitt et al., 2011). This presents a compelling opportunity to explore the discourses surrounding the LMS and to analyze how governance through the LMS manifests in teachers’ time allocation and data utilization, given the requirement for digitalization under the LMS mandate. Using Foucault’s biopolitics concepts (Foucault et al., 2008) and connecting them with his notion of how disciplinary power and surveillance techniques are manifested in institutions such as schools (Foucault, 1979), this article aims to illustrate how biopolitical governance shapes educational policies and practices.

Governance is a frequently used concept in education policy, encompassing various meanings (Wilkins & Mifsud, 2024). In our study, we adopt a Foucauldian framework for governance (1991), providing both a theoretical perspective on state governance and a framework for analyzing how specific forms of governance are constituted. In Discipline and Punish (Foucault, 1979), Foucault reveals how institutions such as prisons and schools share a common objective: controlling individuals’ bodies and behavior in time and space. Conversely, biopolitics focuses on collective apolitical precautions and governance related to population safety and public health. Foucault’s conceptualization” of biopolitics encompasses various power strategies grounded in specialized disciplinary methods, authoritative knowledge structures, and historical narratives (Foucault et al., 2008). As Williamson (2016) noted, Foucault’s concept of biopolitics pertains to corporeal control techniques intertwined with biology, effectively integrating biological existence into political governance. This integration ushers in novel biopower strategies that extend beyond the biological realm, aiming to direct or guide the population toward specific objectives.

The Foucauldian literature on digitalization extensively examined how neoliberalism, manifested through various digital technologies, transforms the educational field (Ball & Grimaldi, 2021; Grimaldi & Ball, 2021; Manolev et al., 2019; Williamson, 2016). Research on digitalization and neoliberalism in education highlight how different forms of governance through disciplinary power techniques foster particular mindsets among learners. For example, Grimaldi and Ball (2021) argued that blended learning opportunities facilitate an individualized ‘learnification’ culture among actors in education, accelerating Ball’s analysis of performance culture in schools (Ball, 2003). In our study, we analyze discourses on national educational authorities introducing the LMS in Denmark. This analysis is grounded in a Foucauldian understanding of biopolitics and governance while simultaneously drawing on insights from the Foucauldian-inspired body of literature regarding digitalization. Within this conceptualization, the starting point for our analysis is that governance––manifested in various disciplinary power techniques, such as digital surveillance (Zuboff, 2019)––shapes actors’ possibilities for agency. However, the constitution of power is dynamic (Foucault, 1991), and the agency of school practitioners, as framed within our biopolitical governance perspective, can resist guidance. Thus, in non-Foucauldian studies, resistance among teachers towards digital changes is a rather common phenomenon (see, for example, Laursen, 2024a; Lochner et al., 2015). By analyzing various disciplinary power and surveillance techniques manifested at the state and school levels, we aim to contribute empirical illustrations of governance to the existing critical educational literature on the digitalization of schools. Specifically, we will demonstrate how discourses on LMS shape teachers’ time allocation and data usage. Furthermore, our goal is to contribute theoretically to the Foucauldian literature by providing new insights into how such specific governance of time allocation and data usage through an LMS can be interpreted as biopolitics.

Thus, the first step of the analysis is to identify discourses that surround the LMS on a national level, as well as the Danish state’s educational ambitions guiding its enactment through a biopolitical lens. Subsequently, our analysis focuses on how these discourses manifest themselves through disciplinary power and surveillance techniques in teachers’ time allocation and data usage. Against this backdrop, we examine the following three research questions: 1) How do state educational ambitions shape educational policies? 2) How does governance through an LMS, via disciplinary power and surveillance techniques, shape teachers’ time allocation and data usage? 3) How can specific governance be understood from a biopolitical perspective?

To address our research questions, we begin by outlining how we think with Foucault, theoretically and methodologically. Subsequently, we analyzed how Danish school policies can be interpreted through a biopolitical lens, allowing us to identify the discourse that surrounds LMS. Thereafter, we illustrate how governance, through disciplinary power and surveillance techniques, shapes teachers’ time allocation and data usage, enabling us to discuss specific governance from a biopolitical perspective.

Thinking with Foucault to frame our analysis

Discussing Foucault’s, (1991) study on governmentality, Lemke (2007) suggests that governance is fundamentally about governmentality. He outlines three analytical perspectives derived from Foucault’s work: 1) the normalist account, which emphasizes the role of knowledge and political discourses in constituting the state; 2) an analytics of government, encompassing both material and symbolic technologies; and 3) the view of the state as both an instrument and effect of political strategies, molding political institutions and state apparatuses (Lemke, 2007, p. 44). In our analysis, we draw on all three levels of governmentality and relate the three levels of governmentality to biopolitics.

Biopolitics pertains to governance in terms of population safety and public health (Foucault et al., 2008), implying that a state’s legitimacy is associated with its capacity to safeguard its population against risks. Lemke (2001) further explained that the biopolitical perspective concerns the individualized disciplining of bodies, facilitated by social power technologies such as behavior monitoring, represented by the panopticon and the comprehensive power wielded by biopolitics through state governance employing techniques such as statistics and security concepts. However, Foucault argued that biopolitics manifests itself through institutions, procedures, analyses, reflections, calculations, and tactics using normalization techniques (Foucault et al., 2008, p. 108). In the context of schools, we argue that biopolitics refers to the empirical phenomenon of biopolitics that entails the examination of discourses of digitalization. Moreover, we argue that educational objectives aim to reduce risks for the population and safeguard its future. Thus, comprehending the biopolitics concept within the education field involves identifying discourses that surround the state’s educational goals and discerning specific governance strategies which emerges from them.

To establish our biopolitical argument, our study focuses on the governance of teachers’ time allocation and data usage through an LMS. On one hand, digital tools enable individualized learning paths (Ball & Grimaldi, 2021; Grimaldi & Ball, 2021), but on the other hand, they standardize (Selwyn, 2011) and automate practices (Perrotta et al., 2021). From a biopolitical perspective, an LMS serves as a governance instrument that aims to realize educational visions. Accordingly, schools function as architectural institutions of surveillance to deploy disciplinary power techniques that emphasize control, such as surveillance of teachers and students’ agency (Foucault, 1979). Digital tools’ architecture in education extends surveillance practices, enabling principals to monitor teachers and students’ activities. For example, principals can check lesson plans and student records at any given time, thereby enhancing surveillance of educational practices (Laursen, 2020). This surveillance system is characterized by a hierarchy of watchers and the watched, as Manolev et al. (2019) described it. Foucault characterized hierarchical surveillance as a pivotal disciplinary power technique, wherein those higher up in the hierarchy monitor relationships between individuals, such as the relationship between administrators and principals, principals and teachers, and teachers and students. This constant monitoring renders individuals accountable for their actions, and such visibility reinforces the authority of those in positions of power, while also instilling a sense of discipline and obedience among those being observed (Foucault, 1979).

Dolan (2010) asserted that temporal dimensions cannot be considered independently because all social processes and practices occur within specific spaces or sites. An example could be schools in which teachers and students are most often bound to the school and a specific time frame for teaching. Furthermore, Dolan (2010) suggested that for Foucault, practices within these spaces play a crucial role in molding subjectivities in highly spatialized according to the spaces. For example, in schools, the school buildings aim to instill obedience or a learning mindset in students. Dolan’s (2010) interpretation of Foucault suggested that individuals’ agency is highly spatialized to the spaces in which they are located. From a biopolitical perspective, discourses that articulate the state’s educational objectives shape teachers’ time allocation and how teachers organize their practices to align with these particular goals. Subsequently, teachers’ time consumption manifests within the school setting as schools situate teaching. However, Grimaldi and Ball (2021) demonstrated that digital tools can disassociate time and space in learning tasks, implying that instruction and, subsequently, students’ learning tasks do not necessarily need to be confined to physical school settings. We argue that tools like the LMS theoretically can individualize time, as in our case, in which the teacher (or student) can work on the digital platform at their convenience, expanding the time frame for work, unlike traditional teaching constraints that bind teachers and students to physical schools.

Within a Foucauldian framework, Manolev et al. (2019) contended that schools operate as social control mechanisms, employing normalization techniques to conform to and advance the state’s educational objectives. One way to conceptualize ‘normalization’ in schools is through governance by numbers (Lawn, 2014), which visualizes how school outcomes are measured, such as students’ learning achievements and budgets compared with other schools at local, national, and international levels. In this context, data and numerical metrics dictate all actors’ agency, serving as a tool to discipline them and standardize practices to achieve normalization. However, the pursuit of normalization fosters a performance-driven culture (Ball, 2003), as numerical categorizations visualize performance indicators, fostering competition among actors. Ball (2013) argued that such techniques serve the purposes of disciplinary power in shaping specific individuals. From a biopolitical perspective, usage of teachers’ data aligns with the state’s ambitions, constituting disciplinary power structures that mold and guide teachers’ possibilities for data utilization.

Thinking through a biopolitical lens

The empirical foundation of our biopolitical analysis lies in the LMS mandate for Danish schools. This case is constructed on legislative documents, including school reform in 2014 (Danish Ministry of Education, 2013), new working-hour regulations in 2013 (Danish Ministry of Employment, 2013) a political agreement to introduce an LMS in schools (Municipalities, 2016), ministerial guidelines on LMS utilization (e.g. Danish Ministry of Education, 2014), policy documents that outline schools’ role in society (such as Danish Government, 2006), and in-depth interviews with 32 key stakeholders––all of which contribute to this analysis. The interviewees comprise a director from an LMS company, four municipal administrators, five school leaders, and 22 teachers.

From a Foucauldian perspective, Holloway (2019) defined discourse as frameworks of thought that establish and delineate possibilities. Discourse constitutes what is knowable and imaginable, functioning as a ‘regime of truth’, rather than truth itself. In essence, discourse encompasses language, practices, and fields of knowledge that construct our reality, perpetually subject to negotiation and renegotiation at any given moment, in any given space. Accordingly, discourse analysis endeavors to comprehend how language, over time, molds reality and shapes particular ways of understanding, acting, and existing. In our examination of policies and interviews, we sought to identify patterns of politicians’ objectives concerning primary and secondary schooling, as well as discourses on how the LMS can support such objectives.

Thus, our approach involved delving into discourses embedded within legislation, policy documents, and interviews while engaging with Foucault’s biopolitics and discipline theories, as well as a substantial body of Foucault-inspired literature on education. This process enabled us to identify dominant discourses within the policies and interviews while also reflecting on how governance through disciplinary power and surveillance was manifested in the policies and interviews comprising our case study. Through this combined reading, we began to analyze the policies and interviews within a theoretical framework, as Gilbert (2021) exemplified. With his approach, he referred to Jackson and Mazzei’s (2013) idea that calls for qualitative researchers to use theory to think with their data. According to Jackson and Mazzei (2013), thinking with theory involves ‘plugging in’, a process that challenges conventional coding in qualitative data interpretation and analysis. It explains and enacts the methodological maneuvers taken up while thinking with theory. When one ‘plugs in’, theory becomes intertwined with data to open up new interpretations and analytical possibilities. In our study, this entailed analyzing policies and interviews by ‘plugging in’ key theoretical concepts, such as the state’s educational vision, governance through disciplinary power techniques, and surveillance.

By actively seeking to identify discourses surrounding governance through disciplinary power and surveillance, we aimed to understand how these mechanisms supported educational ambitions from a Foucauldian perspective, which presupposes that state institutions seek to discipline individuals’ bodies and foster individual self-regulation (Foucault, 1979). Our analysis of governance through disciplinary power and surveillance via the LMS enabled us to reassess how these mechanisms contribute to the broader biopolitical agenda aimed at shaping the population to sustain, in our case, the Danish welfare state.

From autonomy to outcome governance of Danish schools

The Danish educational system is part of the state and its institutions where particular forms of governance is constituted. Educational governance is organized across three tiers, from which the various levels of state institutions manifest power and discipline via different technologies. At the national level, the Parliament legislates educational policies, overseen by the government and its administrative bodies, to provide guidance on effective teaching practices. At the municipal level, cities handle day-to-day school operations, such as employing staff, managing budgets, and monitoring performance. They have ‘local’ autonomy in transforming educational practices within their jurisdictions while aligning with state objectives. At the school level, the board and principal ensure student outcomes and budget management, in line with municipal and state objectives (Moos, 2014).

Traditionally, Danish schools have enjoyed autonomy, fostering distinct school cultures that emphasize democratic values (Moos, 2008). However, participation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Program for International Students Assessment (PISA) investigations elicited political pressure to cultivate a stronger evaluation culture and identify standardized teaching methods (Krejsler & Moos, 2021). Policies such as the national test system (2006) and student progression plans (2011) aimed to standardize assessments and ensure appropriate learning trajectories. School reform in 2013 prioritized student proficiency, operationalized through the national test system, with a goal of at least 80% of students achieving a ‘good’ performance grade. Thus, Danish politicians have pushed for reforms, such as the 2013 school reform, aimed at improving learning outcomes and ensuring that students develop sufficient competencies to progress to upper secondary education (Laursen, 2024b). Accordingly, Danish schooling’s primary purpose is stated in Section 1 of the primary and lower secondary law, which, in its first sentence, mandates that ‘elementary schools, in collaboration with parents, bear the responsibility to impart students with knowledge and skills that prepare them for further education’ (Promulgation of the Act on the primary school, 2023). This legal mandate aligns with the broader themes of education, power, and governance highlighted by Bürgi and Tröhler (2018) in their analysis of the OECD, which calls for a shift from traditional education to policies grounded in quantitative data to meet future demands, assessing schools based on efficiency and productivity.

Danish schools understood through a biopolitical lens

In this understanding, the political focus on continuing education highlights the biopolitical dimension of the schooling system in two ways. First, biopolitical governance emphasizes collective discipline by authorities to mold the population’s perception of education as an obligation, thereby producing a workforce with the necessary skills. Second, it ensures students stay on their educational track, which is crucial as more than 50,000 students may never reengage with formal education (Danish Government, 2017). In this context, biopolitical governance seeks not only to address the risk that elementary students lack the competencies for upper secondary education but also to mitigate the long-term negative consequences for Denmark’s competitiveness in the global economy.

Another political reason to ensure an educational system that produces the right competencies is that individuals with lower socioeconomic status account for a significant portion of the healthcare system’s financial burdens because they are at a higher risk of lifestyle diseases (Danish Health Data Authority, 2018). Furthermore, the healthcare system utilizes many resources on lower-educated citizens even though this group sometimes paradoxically avoids visiting the doctor. Additionally, when these individuals become part of the healthcare system, they also tend to be out of the labor market to a large extent and rely on social benefits for their livelihood (Danish Health Authority, 2017).

In this sense, biopolitical governance in Danish education is about reducing the risk of an undereducated population and guiding the population toward learning, acquiring competencies, and fostering awareness of the significance of an educated populace, thereby legitimizing educational reforms. When educational governance constitutes the agency of e.g. schools, the state’s ambitions may merge with individuals’ motivations for personal development, aiming to become as educated as possible. Using the enactment of an LMS, the following analysis explores teachers’ time allocation and data usage, exemplifying the disciplinary power techniques embedded within the system.

Temporal discipline related to the LMS

Out of a total of approximately 1,924 working hours in the academic year, a typical Danish teacher uses 600 to 750 hours for teaching, while the remaining hours are allocated to tasks such as preparation, assessment, and meetings. School leaders are responsible for outlining a comprehensive work plan that encompasses teaching, preparation, meetings, and other tasks. Teachers are expected to work from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday (The Danish Teachers’ Union, 2023), with school day variations by grade level. Students’ typical school day is approximately 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., including breaks.

A few of the interviewed teachers explicitly described their alignment with the political discourses on how and why to use the platform, making the LMS the central hub for all instructional activities. A hypothetical example illustrating their approach might involve teachers initiating their classes by launching the LMS on their computers to mark absent students. Subsequently, they could help students access the platform for assignments, which are readily available and assignable. Toward the end of the class, students might be prompted to self-evaluate their efforts using an evaluation scheme integrated within the platform. This example illustrates how use of the LMS can shape teachers’ time allocation during their teaching. In this regard, the LMS functions as a governance technique (Moos, 2009) to regulate how teachers organize their time for students during lessons, with the intension of completely transforming teachers’ instructional practices. One aspect of this time structuring involves dividing the lesson into standardized segments, such as goal setting for students, followed by performance evaluation.

However, it must be stressed that this specific teaching scenario is unlikely to be universally applicable because during the interviews, many of the teachers, particularly those instructing younger students, noted how starting up a computer takes 10–15 minutes out of a 45-minute lesson. They were concerned that adopting a teaching approach similar to the example would impact the youngest students’ learning negatively and may prevent them from completing the syllabus due to excessive time spent on computer setup (not to mention dealing with potential errors related to young children and computers). In light of this, the primary school articulated a counter-discourse that the LMS, instead of supporting time efficiency, does the opposite. The consequence is that if such an alternative discourse becomes dominant in schools, and at the administrative level, governance through the LMS will not be efficient in practice, thereby resulting in embodied self-regulated behavior different from what was intended.

Shaping teacher time and practice

While the LMS has the potential to influence teachers’ opportunities within their lessons, it also serves as a crucial tool that structures teachers’ time outside the classroom, particularly if they use the platform daily as mandated. The example below of a teacher explaining how to prepare lessons within the LMS may not be representative of all teachers we interviewed, but it exemplifies effective utilization of the LMS to plan teaching courses, thereby implicitly illustrating how the platform disciplines time consumption:

I have all my teaching materials on the platform. I organize all my teaching courses on this platform, which serves as a PowerPoint, reading book, textbook, and homework book for me. Everything is consolidated under one cap, or in one package, and I have all my courses accessible on the platform. (…) I use the platform to design my annual plan, where I arrange blocks to mark holidays and various activities. For example, in Danish, I created four large boxes for Subjects 1, 2, 3, and 4, representing the four subjects we need to cover. Under each topic, I ensure that we cover all the different genres required in Danish. These big boxes become spaces where I can insert specific content once I know what I want to work on for the four different subjects. When I’m ready, I delve into Subject 1 and begin planning it. I upload PDFs (and) share texts, links, videos, and assignments, including my own description, what I call ‘flavor text’, of what we are going to do. I also incorporate reflections and other essential elements that we need to cover during our teaching sessions. (Teacher 16)

The quote above reveals how the teacher´s comprehensive use of the platform streamlines his workflow and governs time efficiency. Governance through the LMS influences teachers’ preparation time by automating and standardizing the planning process, as indicated by the teacher’s experience. While automation and standardization offer efficiency benefits, they also limit flexibility in teachers’ workflows, guiding them toward a predetermined direction-one of the motivations behind implementing the LMS (see, for example, Danish Ministry of Education, 2014).

Another example of time efficiency is how the teacher explains using the LMS as a card index for all his teaching, making it easy and quick for him to plan his teaching courses. However, this example also highlights how the LMS can encourage teachers to prioritize their preparation time in line with specific political requirements on teaching methods such as goal-directed teaching. This is evident in the dominant policy discourses surrounding the LMS, which emphasize both saving time when preparing teaching materials and, in particular, gathering data about student performance, as well as ensuring that students know what to learn from every lesson. As the teacher example demonstrated, these discourses inescapably shape how teachers interact with the LMS. For example, the platform’s design allows teachers to evaluate the children’s efforts in a very specific manner, as illustrated by some of the interviewed teachers who explained that the evaluation process envisions a spiderweb connecting the fixed points for assessment. Thus, exemplifying our focus, the use of the LMS guides teacher preparation time. Additionally, the example illustrates how power technologies not only discipline teachers but also mold students’ possibilities for agency, indicating the breadth of governance influence.

Governing work hours and productivity

The teachers’ ideally work on the LMS during the hours teachers are at school. However, as with all other digital technologies, it is possible for teachers to work on the LMS when it suits them. On one hand, working on the LMS should make teachers’ work more efficient and enable them to handle more assignments. On the other hand, many of the interviewed teachers said they do not have enough time to prepare their teaching lessons adequately to deliver excellent teaching. One teacher explained how she constantly faces new tasks, such as digitalizing her teaching on the platform, but that tasks are never removed from the work plan, making it difficult to find time to fulfill her responsibilities at a satisfactory level. In this sense, the teacher expresses a hectic work life and that working on the LMS is just another task to complete, adding to an already-extensive workloads.

Some teachers explained how they find sharing teaching courses and collaborating much easier with teachers from other classes. For example, some math teachers believed that Danish teachers could exploit the platform’s benefits more effectively. Meanwhile, others simply noted that once they become more familiar with the platform, they will be able to save time, suggesting that discourses surrounding the LMS, such as the notion that it simplifies teaching in lower secondary levels due to its plug-and-play digitalization (Bøgelund & Nielsen, 2015), influence teachers’ perceptions. They refer to these dominant discourses both to justify using the LMS and as an excuse for their current lack of utilization. One teacher argued:

The LMS is a valuable tool that enhances student learning or streamlines teachers’ work lives, but it’s not suitable for me yet. Another example of how the efficiency discourse is internalized by teachers who do not use the platform themselves is a primary teacher stating … Additionally, the way the system works seems well-suited for the older classes. (Teacher 2)

This shows that although this teacher did not find the LMS suitable for young kids, they still believe that the LMS could be a suitable tool for students and teachers in lower secondary.

Shaping boundaries and discipline practices

One of the political discourses related to the working-hour regulation (Act 409) aimed to establish a need for normalizing teachers’ work. This normalization required that teachers work within a specific time slot, be physically present at schools, and allocate more of their time to classroom teaching. Subsequently, political discourses related to implementing the LMS intended to convey an understanding that working on the LMS would ease teachers’ workloads, particularly in terms of lesson preparation (Laursen, 2022). Representing 95% of Danish teachers, the Danish Union of Teachers (Aisinger, 2015) has opposed the new working-hour regulation, as the Union strongly believes that the way in which Act 409 strictly regulates the work of teachers like industrial workers violates their understanding of how teachers must work to maintain professional standards. One of the interviewed teachers reflects on the Union’s critical discourse on the LMS by expressing:

Then they [the politicians in power] will get it the way they want. (i.e., now he only work[s] [during] the scheduled hours, and the consequences of that [are] that he cannot get all his work done, and that is just how it is) (Teacher 7)

The political power to regulate teachers’ work is constituted in Act 409. While the regulation aims to discipline teachers’ work modus in a particular way, the disciplinary mechanism is met with reluctant compliance by the quoted teacher, as indicated by the teacher’s statement to perform the minimum required. Beyond the teachers’ clear discontent with Act 409, the quote also sheds light on the notion that many Danish teachers believe they are performing a substantial amount of ‘invisible work’, as implied by the quoted teacher’s reference to working hours beyond those stipulated by the working-hour regulation.

In this sense, the disciplinary power embedded in the digital design of the LMS pushes the boundaries on when to prepare teaching sessions and engage in teaching activities. Initially, politicians aimed to regulate teachers’ time through physical presence requirements outlined in Act 409, assuming that being physically present in schools would ensure adequate work hours. However, the omnipresence of the LMS allows for a more flexible approach, enabling teachers to prepare and teach online at any time. This flexibility can alleviate teachers’ guilt about meeting preparation requirements set by school managers, as they can continue their work from home (Laursen, 2024a). Thus, in this understanding, guilt constitutes a self-regulated behavior where teachers feel compelled to work more than they are paid for, believing that adhering strictly to the regulations would negatively impact students’ learning. In our theoretical perspective, this means that the ubiquitous presence of the platform disciplines teachers to perform more – not to comply with political demands, but to ensure that students receive a sufficiently good education. Although the teachers in our analysis do not wish to ‘play’ the politicians’ game, the platform allows them to work at any time, thereby erasing the excuse of not having enough time within the designated working hours to deliver quality teaching.

The critical stance that teachers adopted leads to resistance toward using the platform, particularly among teachers who focus solely on teaching responsibilities at schools (Laursen, 2024a). However, the significant disciplinary elements linked to the LMS may encourage teachers to embrace the platform. In this scenario, the LMS becomes a powerful tool that supports the school as a total institution (Foucault, 1979), where teachers’ and students’ practices through the platform are constantly monitored. Consequently, the LMS extends teachers’ working hours beyond the agreed-upon working-hour agreement, enabling seemingly limitless work for both teachers and students. Such a scenario aligns with Foucault’s biopolitical notion (Foucault et al., 2008), wherein our analysis concerns optimizing resources and technologies to maintain acceptable costs while prioritizing a high academic level among students.

Biopolitical governance aims to reduce the risk of underperforming teachers and students, ultimately decreasing the likelihood of graduating students being academically unprepared for higher education. In this sense, the LMS transforms into a mechanism that ensures teachers can engage in teaching activities around-the-clock, aligning with elementary schooling goals. It functions as a tool designed to underpin the concept of limitless work to optimize education.

Data usage related to the LMS

For the Danish state, the practice of gathering student data has constituted an indispensable component of the discourses and governing mechanisms in order to transform primary and lower secondary education, dating back to PISA 2001 (see e.g. Krejsler and Moos, 2021). The advent of the LMS has furthered this discourse on data-driven teaching, positioning it as a tool that legitimizes daily utilization of the LMS for purposes of amassing student data. This strategic endeavor aims to harness said data to optimize pedagogical techniques employed by teachers. The discourse of the LMS aims to manifest a teacher’s practice wherein they collect either data created by the students or about the students, enabling teachers to establish timely responses to indications of risk that manifest in the data. For instance, statistics about student absences enable teachers to respond promptly to that risk.

For example, one teacher, who represents the majority of the 22 teachers interviewed, noted:

There are some requirements related to the use of the platform. We must upload a specific form of teaching course, and we must work with data related to the platform. (Teacher 21)

The teacher found the demands exciting, as they might be a way to professionalize the teaching profession, i.e. the requirements in this regard inspire him. However, the teacher also expressed concerns that how the platform works tends to be one-dimensional. Indeed, the teacher emphasized that working with data on the platform has its limitations due to the platform’s design, which, from the teacher’s perspective, simplifies the work. For example, the teacher explained that the spiderweb process of evaluation mentioned earlier does not consider many aspects of students’ abilities and learning processes. Still, the teacher exemplifies how the discourse concerning the benefits of working with data to that extent is also prominent among the teachers. Therefore, the discourse is not only found at the political and administrative levels but is also an important topic for teachers in maintaining their careers’ professionalization. As another teacher put it: ‘We need to move away from opinions about students to actually know how they are doing’ (Teacher 12). For many of the teachers interviewed, working with data is crucial to achieving this goal. The discourse surrounding data implies that working extensively with data defines a good teacher, thereby limiting teachers’ opportunities to articulate what constitutes good teaching without relying on data. In this context, the design of the LMS serves as a form of soft governance (Moos, 2009), guiding teachers toward a specific approach to teaching that emphasizes data usage, such as that advocated by policymakers in ministerial guidelines. To illustrate the leaders’ use of soft governance school leader 4 implemented a structured protocol for transitioning classes between teachers. This protocol relies on data stored in the LMS, including student records and lesson plans, to provide transparency about ongoing class activities and student progress. While this automated process facilitates smooth transitions, it also dictates practice for teachers taking over classes, potentially constraining their autonomy. Teachers may feel pressured to conform to expectations set by politicians, administrators, and school leaders regarding evidence-based teaching practices.

Objectified data’s role in governance through the LMS

Governance through the LMS regarding specific data usage manifests in at least two ways in which teachers work with data. One approach to working with data in the LMS is quantified, i.e. teachers must input objectified numbers about their students in the platform, which could involve, for example, registering whether the students are absent from class or, in the case of the lower secondary classes, recording the students’ standing grades. ¨However, this specific task of registering data did not significantly impact the working situation or their views on enacting LMS for the interviewed teachers, even though many of the teachers pointed out that registering absences on the platform was time-consuming and cumbersome. Data quantification played a significant role for the interviewed leaders. As one stated: ‘Much assessment today is based on qualitative data – and we are being squeezed by the plethora of numbers in quantitative data that policymakers fancy’ (Leader 3) In this sense, the leader did not specifically address the quantitative data uploaded into the LMS, but rather highlighted how ‘hard core’ data are significant for administrators. This form of quantification serves a disciplinary function, as the ‘objective’ numbers, such as how students perform on national tests or the results from the annual national well-being assessment among students, become the most significant parameters for the leaders’ annual conversations with administrators, i.e. a governance-by-numbers perspective (Lawn, 2014). The quantified numbers function as an assurance mechanism for administrators, ensuring that the school performs at a satisfactory level based on the parameters that politicians in power have demanded. Considering this, the LMS does not revolutionize the approach to collecting quantified data, but rather functions as a tool that politicians anticipate will facilitate the seamless acquisition of essential ‘hard-core’ data. In light of this, the LMS becomes a tool for disciplining teachers (and managers) so that they adhere to a specific understanding of data usage, reinforcing goal-directed teaching, as guided by authorities, toward an evidence-based culture in schools, as Krejsler and Moos (2021) argued. Just as Foucault (1979) discussed how institutions discipline individuals through, for example, the panopticon, disciplinary techniques from the LMS also provide a collective perspective on schooling, granting teachers and local management the authority to discern and respond promptly when quantified data reveal deviations from established discourses on understanding and working with data in schools. Thus, the LMS fortifies the biopolitical governance of timely intervention to ensure that students acquire the right competencies for their further education.

Goal-directed teaching discourses’ disciplinary power as exercised through the LMS

Another approach to working with data in the LMS is related to a specific pedagogical approach’s dominant discourse, known as goal-directed teaching, a Danish variation of Hattie’s visible learning (Rømer, 2019). This concept has become the primary discourse on how teachers should work with data in the LMS. However, goal-directed teaching discourse’s dominance among policymakers functions simultaneously as a soft governance technique (Moos, 2009), guiding teachers toward adopting a one-way approach to teaching.

As a result of this particular discourse, the four schools in the study were required to produce teaching courses that build on goal-directed teaching principles. In essence, this means that teachers must structure their courses and lessons by clearly defining learning objectives for their students. They are expected to begin each course/lesson by outlining specific learning goals, then concluding with an evaluation of the extent to which the students have achieved goals that the teacher has set. The focus on goal-directed teaching aims to ensure a measurable and outcome-driven approach (Danish Ministry of Education, 2014) to education, using data to assess students’ progress and instructional effectiveness. Only a few of the interviewed teachers engaged in such goal-directed teaching work on a daily basis. However, at all four investigated schools, local management required the teachers to work with student data in this way. As a result, all teachers were obligated to produce exemplary goal-directed teaching, with variations in the number of courses they had to produce (ranging from one to four teaching courses). To ensure that the teachers actually implemented this kind of teaching, one of the leaders explained how he used the annual review conversation (Medarbejder udviklingssamtale (MUS-samtale)) to discuss the teachers’ overall use of the LMS and, more importantly, their approach to goal-directed teaching in relation to the platform. As part of the discussion, the teachers were obligated to provide concrete examples of how they have worked with goal-directed teaching. In this context, the discourse around the annual review conversation emphasizes its significance for employees’ professional development. However, in this case, the teachers’ data usage as it relates to goal-directed teaching demonstrates how such conversations also function as exercises of power as the leader seeks a very specific teacher performance.

Disciplinary power techniques through the LMS to fulfill biopolitical educational objectives

Our analysis shows that the LMS serves both as a tool for organizing job tasks and structuring teachers’ time, as well as a resource accessible to teachers and students at all times of the day, enabling work on assignments outside of school hours. We find that the collection and utilization of student data within the LMS are twofold: it involves both data about the students and specific data about their academic output.

Time allocation and data usage, though distinct concepts, are interconnected components of the LMS, where both are subjected to various disciplinary power techniques. These techniques constitute the overall objective within the biopolitical governance conceptualization of Danish education.

Dynamics of discipline through digital governance

The disciplinary power techniques we identify add to the body of knowledge in Foucault-inspired studies on digitization. For example, scholars such as Ball and Grimaldi have studied the utilization of digital tools to enhance students’ learning through the implementation of ‘learningification’ programs (Ball & Grimaldi, 2021; Grimaldi & Ball, 2021). Likewise, Manolev et al. (2019) illuminated how platforms such as ClassDojo harness gamification elements to engage students and sustain their motivation. Furthermore, Perrotta et al. (2021) demonstrated how Google Classroom automates various educational practices, which forms the possibilities for pedagogical participation. Collectively, these studies underscore how disciplinary actions become intertwined with technology intended to change educational practices. These analyses underscore the profound interplay between technology and the dynamics of discipline within educational contexts. Teachers and educational institutions as such must maintain a keen awareness of the dual role that digital tools play, not only enhancing learning, but also wielding significant power in changing pedagogical possibilities. Our analysis brings to light the intricate dynamics within schools, in which the LMS not only structures teachers’ time allocation, but also exerts influence over their pedagogical choices. Despite soft power’s omnipresence and the pressures from norms, it is striking that many of the teachers in the study actively resist the discipline functions embedded in the LMS, constituted as power technologies shaping teachers’ bodies and establishing norms. They steadfastly refuse to permit the LMS to dictate unilaterally or entirely form their instructional methodologies (Laursen, 2024a). This resistance emphasizes the agency of teachers, who, despite the disciplinary mechanisms in play, exercise their professional autonomy in crafting what they view as meaningful and contextually relevant educational experiences for their students. However, that resistance notably may evolve over time, as it is reasonable to assume that resistance may diminish as political intentions regarding the specific use of the LMS become increasingly ingrained in practice. In this context, it remains imperative to comprehend how disciplinary power and surveillance techniques unfold over time, particularly in contexts such as Denmark, which historically has emphasized that teachers must have the freedom to choose the teaching methods and subjects they believe are best suited for their students (Moos, 2008). Despite this well-established discourse on teachers’ autonomy in Denmark, it is reasonable, within our theoretical framework, to propose that the disciplinary power and surveillance techniques manifested as governance through the LMS also contribute to the self-regulated behavior and practices of teachers as intended. In such an understanding, the disciplinary power and surveillance techniques––as constituted in discourses on how to use the LMS, such as for goal-directed teaching––embody teachers’ practices. Therefore, we advocate for ongoing critical research on the subject to analyze how these dynamics transforms teachers’ practice in the long run.

Biopolitics and shaping policies economic imperatives toward learning and education

Drawing on Williamson’s (2016) insights, our study bridges the biopolitics, technology, and education realms by highlighting how digital devices generate vast data reservoirs, thereby constituting new knowledge systems that form the bio-digital subject. Consequently, this research underscores digitalization’s role and the utilization of educational data as integral instruments in the governance of children within the broader biopolitics framework. Within our study, the disciplinary mechanisms administered through the LMS are designed with the explicit objective of enhancing students’ learning outcomes while mitigating the risk of students failing to acquire the requisite competencies for future education. This aligns with Waldow and Steiner-Khamsi’s (2019), which illustrates how governments, driven by competition and influenced by PISA results, align their policies with OECD recommendations. Thus, PISA investigations, as Lemke (2001) contended, produce comparative statistical knowledge regarding elementary school students’ academic performance. This knowledge assumes a role in the state’s governance practices, serving as a crucial metric.

We emphasize that biopolitics extends beyond mere educational policies, aiming to cultivate a well-educated populace and positioning schooling as a crucial component of the state’s broader employment and economic strategies, as articulated by Sellar and Lingard (2014). According to Simons (2006), biopolitics in education involves the state constructing infrastructures that promote entrepreneurial freedom and informed decision-making (Simons, 2006, p. 533). This perspective aligns with Becker’s human capital theory (Becker, 1993), which considers learning as an investment beneficial to both individuals and the state. Bürgi and Tröhler (2018) further underscore the state’s role in education, focusing on producing ‘the right kind of people’ for the state’s educational objectives.

Biopolitics and time allocation and data usage

Foucault’s analysis (Foucault, 1979) demonstrates how institutions aim to discipline the individual body in time and space, while his concept of biopolitics (2008) concerns precautionary actions and governance to ensure the safety of the population – a key state objective. In our case, biopolitical governance in relation to schools focuses on producing the right competencies to mitigate the risks of an undereducated population. As Dolan (2010) asserts, social processes and practices are inherently temporal and spatial, and in our case, time is a scarce resource due to regulations on teachers’ working hours. When viewed through a biopolitical lens, controlling how and for what teachers’ time is used becomes central. Thus, biopolitical governance of time involves optimizing teachers’ time allocation, making them as efficient as possible. Additionally, it ensures that teachers use their time on aspects that are politically believed to enhance teaching effectiveness, such as goal-directed teaching through data usage. This ties our theoretical understanding together and connects the school as a time and place for teaching and learning.

However, governance through the LMS enhances the potential for optimizing teachers’ time allocation, emphasizing the necessity of directing their efforts towards specific content. Grimaldi and Ball (2021) underscore how digital solutions in educational settings facilitate the disjunction of time and space, thereby enhancing learning and performativity through the ability to engage with tasks beyond the confines of traditional school hours. Building on Ball’s (2003) observation of schools’ deeply ingrained culture of performativity, which instills anxiety among teachers, the LMS ensures constant availability, accessible at the click of a button on a teacher’s computer. This immediate accessibility activates a sense of obligation, whether related to incomplete tasks from the school day or inadequately prepared teaching materials for students. Consequently, disciplinary mechanisms previously confined to the school environment extend into teachers’ homes, eliminating their moments of respite for school-related reflection.

The governance exercised through the LMS mirrors Foucauldian notions of carceral discipline, now pervading the domestic sphere of the teacher. This blurring of spatial and temporal boundaries regarding teachers’ work obligations signifies that digitization and biopolitical governance have the potential to dismantle traditional temporal norms in education, ultimately subjecting teachers (and students) to continuous surveillance and control. This perspective urges critical inquiry into how states will exploit these newfound capabilities to regulate and optimize the allocation of time within the framework of biopolitical governance.

Conclusion

This study addresses three interrelated research questions on how governance from a biopolitical perspective through an LMS via disciplinary power techniques, such as surveillance, shapes teachers’ time allocation and data usage? The analysis illuminates how discipline exerted through the LMS forms teachers’ time allocation and data usage. Within our theoretical framework, this is understood as biopolitical governance, aiming to achieve specific state educational objectives.

The analysis underscores that the biopolitical governance of teachers through the LMS involves optimizing and controlling their time to ensure compliance with political expectations. This governance also extends to data usage, ensuring that teachers collect and utilize student data, such as attendance records, as part of their daily teaching.

By doing so, we demonstrate that biopolitics is closely intertwined with the collective discipline imperative, transcending mere educational policies and becoming deeply entrenched in economic logic. Consequently, we argue that biopolitics constructs discourses emphasizing the necessity of a well-educated population while depending on the population’s discipline to ensure that schools produce individuals equipped with the competencies required for future education. Governing teachers’ time allocation and data usage is a significant step toward achieving this goal.

Our study issues a clarion call for critical awareness by revealing how governance through the LMS embodies a disciplinary mechanism that converges with biopolitical imperatives Highlighting this is vital to understanding the discipline within educational institutions and ensuring that biopolitical mechanisms do not undermine the autonomy and creativity of pedagogical practice. Our research calls for sustained critical reflection and ongoing examination of how biopolitics shapes policies and practices in education.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the editor group––including Miriam Madsen, Nelli Piattoeva, Berit Karseth, and Ida Lund––as well as our ECER discussant, Mathias Decuypere, and our feedback group––comprising Antti Saari, Berit Karseth, Daniel Zederkorff, and Simona Bernotaite––for its invaluable comments on an earlier version of this article. In addition, we extend great thanks to the anonymous reviewers and editors of Critical Studies in Education for their critical feedback. Any remaining problems or mistakes are, of course, our responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Ronni Laursen

Ronni Laursen is an assistant professor at Aalborg University’s Department of Culture and Learning. His research interests encompass the analysis of the relationships between digital governance, leadership, and practice.

Ruth Jensen

Ruth Jensen is a professor of educational leadership at the University of Oslo, Norway. Her research interests include processes of educational leadership, governance, and institutional work within and across levels and settings. Specific attention is devoted to the role of tools, expansive learning, and issues of time and space in her analyzes.