Page 41 - Education in a Digital World

28 Theoretical Approaches

Education politics: i.e. questions of how these things are problematised, decided,
administered and managed. This includes questions of the patterns of coordination
and governance that educational technology is subject to (e.g. funding, provision,
ownership, regulation), and by whom, and following what (sectoral and cultural)
path dependencies.
Politics of education: i.e. questions of what functional, scalar and sectoral
divisions of labour of educational governance are in place. For example, in what
ways are the core problems of capitalism reflected in the mandate, capacity
and governance of national education arrangements? How are the boundaries of
the education sector defined and how do they overlap with and relate to other
sectors? What ‘educational’ activities are undertaken within other sectors?
Outcomes: i.e. questions of what the individual, private, public, collective and
community outcomes of ‘education’ are apparent at each level of analysis.

These levels of questioning certainly appear to offer a considered and comprehensive
‘way in’ to addressing the use of digital technology in education around the world,
distinguishing a range of issues that are central to the specific interests of this book.
These include core questions of what educational technologies are being used,
for what purposes and to whose benefit. Dale’s list also raises key questions of the
governance of educational technology, and the struggles and conflicts that surround
it, as well as the linkages between educational technology and other areas of society
such as economics and politics. Even Dale’s disarmingly brief final suggestions
for the analysis of ‘outcomes’ belies a complex of supplementary questions.
For example, just what are the individual and collective, private and public
outcomes of ‘educational technology’?
Having identified these questions, we also need to be specific about the levels
at which they are to be asked. This is an important, if contested, aspect of the
comparativist approach. From the nineteenth century onwards, most comparative
accounts were centred on the presumed importance of nation states and the study
of national education systems. However, of late, there has been an increasing
reluctance amongst comparative analysts to focus on the national level of description
for fear of what Nancy Fraser terms ‘misframing’ what are now perceived to be
increasingly ‘post-national’ problems (see Fraser and Honneth 2003). Prompted by
descriptions of the declining significance – if not ‘death’– of the nation state, some
commentators contend that it now makes no sense to necessarily privilege national
levels of analysis. Arguments of this sort have increased in light of the apparently
internationalised context of globalisation, and assumed “growing commonalities
across national contexts” (Phillips and Schweisfurth 2008, p.42).
Of course, these concerns are not specific to the field of comparative educational
analysis. Indeed, a number of social science commentators have argued quite
persuasively for the redundancy of cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons in
the face of globalisation and its associated changes. As Peter Jarvis (2000, p.353)
questioned in blunt terms, “why should we undertake comparative analysis at all in