Page 52 - Education in a Digital World

Theoretical Approaches 39

be seen as their ability to develop a more socially grounded understanding of the
‘messy’ realities of educational technology ‘as it happens’.
In approaching education and technology as a site of intense social conflict, these
approaches can therefore allow us to move beyond asking whether or not a
particular educational technology ‘works’ in a technical or pedagogic sense. Instead,
these approaches allow us to address questions of how digital technologies
(re)produce social relations and whose interests they serve. As such, the social
shaping approach suggests that questions are asked about the large number of
organisational, political, economic and cultural factors that pattern the design,
development, production, marketing, implementation and ‘end use’ of a technological
artefact in education. If we wish to gain a full sense of how and why educational
technologies are being used in the ways that they are around the world, we
therefore need to develop better understandings of how technologies are socially
constructed, shaped and negotiated by all of these factors and all of the ‘actors’ that
represent them.

Conclusions

Constraints of space notwithstanding, this chapter’s brief consideration of the
different theoretical perspectives available has advanced the case for taking a con-
textualised and critical stance on education, technology and global change. Of
course, while these theoretical approaches are important, we need to retain a sense
of perspective regarding the strengths and limitations of social theory. Indeed, while
maintaining a theoretical awareness it is worth remaining mindful of Manuel
Castells’ advice to ‘wear one’s theoretical clothes lightly’ rather than displaying a
dogmatic persistence to one viewpoint or approach. Indeed, Manuel Castells (2000)
reminds us of the benefits of ‘disposable theory’– recognising theory as an essential
tool but also acknowledging it as something to be discarded when it outlives its
usefulness in illuminating the substantive world. In these terms, any analyses of
education and digital technology are perhaps best arranged around an assemblage
of theoretical perspectives that can be used as, and when, they best fit. As Amin and
Thrift (2005, p.222) reason:

Theory has taken on a different style which has a lighter touch than of old.
For a start, few now believe that one theory can cover the world (or save the
world, for that matter). No particular theoretical approach, even in combi-
nation with others, can be used to gain a total grip on what’s going on.
Theory-making is a hybrid assemblage of testable propositions and probable
explanations derived from sensings of the world, the world’s persistent ways
of talking back, and the effort of abstraction.

We should therefore feel confident in taking different aspects of the theoretical
perspectives reviewed in this chapter forward into our proceeding discussions. For