Page 53 - Education in a Digital World

40 Theoretical Approaches

instance, the comparative education approach confirms the need to move beyond
the assumption that educational technology is a wholly homogeneous and unifying
phenomenon the world over, and instead strive to make reference to what is
happening elsewhere in terms of educational provision and practice. This perspective
highlights the importance of context and the need for contextualisation – as
Michael Apple (2010, p.195) reasons:

one must be very cautious about appropriating the experiences of another
country uncritically. Often, such ‘recontextualisations’ pull the reforms out of
their context of intense debate that may characterise their development in the
place where the policies originated.

Yet as the comparative education, political economy and post-colonialist
approaches all remind us, our aim should not simply be to collect together an
‘international picture’ of education and technology but to consider the inter-relations
between countries, regions and transnational corporations. We therefore need to
construct different levels of supranational, national and subnational analysis of
education and technology, and most importantly take time to consider the rela-
tionships between these levels. From the political economy and post-colonial
approaches we can also take forward the idea that educational technologies are
imbued with power relations between the many integrated interests involved in the
‘business’ of educational technology. This also highlights the importance of taking a
historical perspective on the unequal power relations that persist between countries,
and, most importantly, to make time to consider possible spaces for alternative
arrangements, intervention and resistance.
Indeed, it is important to bear in mind throughout the course of this book that
these critical approaches are not meant to be defeatist in their outcomes – the
writing and reading of the book is intended to be a constructive rather than
destructive exercise. The post-colonial approach, in particular, highlights the need
to not simply decry the unsatisfactory state of the present, but also to consider
opportunities and spaces for future critical action as well as critical scholarship. As
such, the next six chapters of the book have been written in the spirit of offering an
analysis that is able to point towards contradictions, controversies and the spaces of
possible action. These intentions are implicit in our underpinning understanding of
technology as being inherently socially shaped as well as being socially determining.
Indeed, from the social shaping of technology approach, we can take forward the
importance of developing a socio-technical understanding of education and
technology – with a particular focus on establishing the specific interests that drive
the agendas associated with the use of educational technology, and unpacking the
relationships between technology and the different actors and interests implicit
in educational technology use.
All of these perspectives certainly point to the need to seek to understand
educational technology in terms of its complicated connections to the larger society.