Page 94 - Education in a Digital World

National Policymaking 81

sense of using technology to support the distribution of American education and
American values to developing contexts. In contrast, the educational technology
policies of a country such as Japan could be said to reflect a more insular and ame-
liorative approach to the modernisation of the national education system – an
approach also apparent in Chile’s concerns with developing educational technology
use through the country’sdifferent regions.
With these thoughts in mind, it is useful to draw upon the well-established dis-
tinction between neo-liberal and developmental approaches to national policy for-
mation with their various privileging of individual and collective interests, alongside
public and private forms of organisation. From this perspective, then, much of
the policymaking pursued by the US and UK governments reflects an apparent desire
to set educational technology up as a ‘quasi-market place’, with the state exerting an
element of control over the formation of various policies, ensuring their successful
establishment in the hope that momentum will ‘trickle down’ into the other
market-driven sectors. This is apparent in the emphasis placed by the US and UK
governments over the past thirty years on stimulating demand for digital technology
‘beyond the four walls’ of the school into domestic and wider community settings.
In this sense, educational technology acts as a government constructed flagship for
privately constructed networks throughout the rest of society. Indeed, in many
ways, policy efforts such as the US National Information Infrastructure during the
1990s offer close examples of an ideal-typical model of neo-liberalism – reflecting a
general wariness of centralised approaches to policymaking in American culture.
Nevertheless, even here, education assumed a heightened importance, with the
Federal government paying particular attention to the connection of US schools to
the internet. Of course, perceived government involvement and concern over the
educational aspects of the increased use of technology in society has obvious poli-
tical advantages. For many governments, pledging to ‘wire up’ public school systems
continues to carry far more electoral significance than promising to ensure the
connection of the commercial sector to the internet.
In this way, education has proved to be a highly visible arena for neo-liberal
governments seeking involvement in the increased use of digital technology
throughout society. Conversely, in the case of more developmental states, governments
appear far more prepared to be seen as a central catalyst for technology-based
change, with educational technology policy implementation firmly “driven by the
state acting in accordance with a predetermined set of objectives” (Moore 1998,
p.154). This model typifies the approach taken by the likes of Singapore and Japan,
who have leant towards highly centralised ‘visions’ with strong state leadership and
direction. Manuel Castells (1996) has argued that a state is developmental when its
main source of legitimacy is its ability to deliver consistently high rates of economic
growth and modernisation of the economy both domestically and in relation to the
international economy. This presupposes a societal approach to which “in East Asia
took the form of the affirmation of national identity, and national culture, building
or rebuilding the nation as a force in the world, in this case by means of economic