The National Grid for Learning: Panacea or Panopticon?

Although not fully established, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative is already being presented by both government and industry as offering students, teachers and school extensive freedom and autonomy in their day-to-day work. However, this paper argues that the official discursive construction of the NGfL in this way, as a 'panacea' to educational problems, obscures vital issues of power and control that may only become apparent once the initiative is fully integrated at the classroom level. Drawing initially on the work of Foucault, and then Poster's more recent conception of the electronic 'SuperPanopticon’, this paper re-examines the basis of the NGfL and its role in extending and reinforcing existing power configurations in education. The paper concludes by considering directions for future research into the NGfL, and educational use of the Internet in the light of this analysis.     

'Gilding the Grid': The marketing of the National Grid for Learning

Although the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) has been thrust upon the education sector amidst a blaze of publicity, the 'physical' construction of the Grid promises to be a slow process, with the government giving an optimistic target of 3 years before the initiative will approach full operation. In the meantime, a major initial step in the construction of the NGfL has been the marketing of the Grid to an educational sector historically resistant and sceptical towards Information and Communications Technology. This paper therefore explores the emerging discourse of the NGfL by examining seven examples of marketing and promotional material produced by industry and the government. From these texts, we can therefore gain a sense of how the NGfL is beginning to be shaped at a macro level by its key actors. After presenting the seven texts, the paper explores the predominant themes underlying this discursive construction and highlights an underlying deterministic positioning of the Learning Grid. The paper concludes by considering the limitations of shaping the Learning Grid in this manner and argues for an alternative perspective in future research.     

The national gridfor learning: a case study of new labour education policy-making

Involving around £1 billion of expenditure over a five-year period, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative embodies the fast growing influence of both market and technological forces in UK education. The formation of the initiative can, therefore, be seen as a pivotal signpost for the direction of New Labour education policy-making, particularly with regard to the increased roles of the private sector and quasi-governmental actors in the development and eventual implementation of educational policy. Based on data gathered from a series of in-depth interviews with ‘key actors’ in the formation and initial implementation of the NGfL, this paper details the formation of the initiative and explores the mechanisms and structures of power and decision-making employed during its formation. Adopting the analytical frameworks of ‘policy community’ and ‘policy network’, the emergence and ‘roll-out’ of the National Grid for Learning is discussed in three distinct phases: the origins of the initiative; its initial policy formation; and, finally, its ongoing implementation and first stages of becoming a policy-in-practice. The paper concludes by discussing the NGfL as an example of current UK education policy-making and examines the national and global precedents underlying the nature of its formation.     

The role of the ‘technical fix’ in UK lifelong education policy

The integral place of information and communications technology (ICT) in UK lifelong education has been established by a series of technology-based initiatives introduced by the New Labour government since 1997. Initiatives such as the University for Industry, learndirect, People's Network and National Grid for Learning are being implemented as part of a coherent lifelong education policy-agenda fundamentally based upon the use of ICT. Yet, beneath the political enthusiasm for technology-based education, the role of ICT in lifelong learning remains largely unexamined and unproblematized, with many policy-makers and educationalists content to view technology as providing a ‘technical fix’ for many of education's problems. From this background, the present paper provides a critical perspective on the technological foundations of the UK government's lifelong education agenda. In particular, it examines the nature and form of the policies that have been introduced and then contrasts them with the rhetorical claims that are being made by government and other official actors. In this way the paper discusses how such policies continue to be shaped within a restrictive technocratic and determinist discourse of the ‘technical fix’, thus conforming to traditional narratives of society and technology. The paper then goes on to explore how such construction juxtaposes social and economic elements of the policy-drive and threatens, ultimately, to restrict the eventual educational effectiveness of these ‘new’ lifelong learning initiatives.     

Promoting Mr. ‘Chips’: the construction of the teacher/computer relationship in educational advertising

The £1 billion government drive to integrate information and communications technology (ICT) into UK schools and colleges has been firmly focused on the technological transformation of the teaching profession. In particular, the establishment of a National Grid for Learning (NGfL) remains dependent on the successful ‘selling’ of ICT to teachers; many of whom have previously proved unwilling to use computers. In practice much of this task has been left to IT firms, eager to promote their products to a potentially lucrative educational marketplace. From this basis the present paper takes a detailed examination of educational computing advertising material currently being produced by IT firms in the UK. In particular it concentrates on how advertisements construct both the process of education and the teacher as a potential user of ICT. Four dominant themes emerge from this analysis: ICT as problematic for teachers; ICT as a problem solver for teachers; ICT as a futuristic form of education; and ICT as a traditional form of education. Despite the conflicting, and often contra-factual, nature of these four discourses the paper argues that educational computing advertising is consistent in its disempowering portrayal of the teacher at the expense of both the computer and IT firm. This ‘demotion’ of the teacher is likely to have negative effects on the way that teachers approach ICT as part of their professional routine, running contrary to the underlying aims of the National Grid for Learning initiative.     

Placing cybereducation in the UK classroom

The use of the Internet in the classroom has often been characterized as a practice that disconnects the teacher from traditional forms of externally imposed influence. This paper examines this assertion by mapping the emerging field of cybereducation and considering how endemic knowledge is contextualized by national curricular authorities. The field theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein are employed in order to demonstrate the relationship between expert discourse and classroom pedagogy, using the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) as a case study. This attempt to capture the dynamics of cybereducation ultimately suggests how this emergent intellectual field’s fragmentation and decoupling from State education forces offers policymakers the capacity to influence use. Progress of the UK government in integrating knowledge from an emergent educational field with its incumbent priorities is gauged, demonstrating the way in which national education officials have attempted to constrain potential departures from unregulated, officially mandated curriculum.     

Learners,learning and new technologies

In 1997 the UK Government introduced a major five‐year programme to support and evaluate the successful use of new technologies in life‐long learning. Known as the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) Strategy, this ambitious vision addresses ICT infrastructure, content and practice. Recent OECD studies suggest that the main issues addressed through the NGfL are common to those being tackled throughout the developed world (OECD 2002). This paper will look at the implications of these strategies for curriculum improvement and reform. A theorisation of the possible relationships between different features of ICT and learning will be offered. Finally the contrast between home and school based use of technologies, and the implications for learning will be considered.Apprentis, apprentissage et nouvelles technologies. En 1997, le gouvernement britannique a lancé un programme d'envergure de cinq ans pour soutenir et évaluer l'emploi réussi de nouvelles technologies dans l'éducation tout au long de la vie. Ce programme est connu sous le nom de la stratégie du National Grid for Learning (NGfL), une vision ambitieuse qui touche à l'infrastructure des TIC, leur contenu et leur pratique. Des études récentes de l'OCDE suggèrent que les buts principaux recherchés par le NGfL sont communs avec ceux recherchés dans tous les pays développés (OCDE 2002). Cet article étudie les implications de ces stratégies pour l'amélioration du curriculum et la réforme et prétend montrer que l'e-mail, les conférences par informatique et le web peuvent potentiellement changer la nature des rapports entre apprenants, enseignants, écoles, communautés locales, nationales et internationales. L'article considère trois perspectives de TIC éducatives: comme outil, soutien pour l'enseignement et agent révolutionnaire et leurs relations avec l'évaluation. Finalement, le contrat entre la maison et l'usage des technologies basées à l'école et leurs implications pour l'enseignement seront considérés.Lerner, Lernen und neue Technikologien. 1997 führte die Regierung des Vereinigten Königreiches ein umfangreiches Fünfjahresprogramm ein, um die erfolgreiche Verwendung neuer Technologien im lebenslangen Lernen zu unterstützen und auszuwerten. Diese als 'National Grid for Learning Strategy (NGfL)' bekannte ehrgeizige Vision ist auf ICT- Infrastruktur,, Inhalt und Übung fokussiert. Neue OECD Studien legen nahe, daß sich die durch das NGfL angesprochenen Hauptfragen jenen, die ¨uberall in der entwickelten Welt gestellt werden, (OECD 2002) gleichen. Dieses Papier betrachtet die Auswirkungen dieser Strategien auf Lehrplanverbesserung und -Reform und wird belegen, dass E-Mail, E-Conferencing und die Nutzung des Web die Art der Beziehungen zwischen Lernenden, Lehrern, Schulen sowie lokalen, nationalen und internationalen Gemeinschaften potentiell verändern können. Dann werden drei Perspektiven von Bildungs-ICT im Verhältnis zur Einschätzung betrachtet: als Werkzeug, als Lernunterstützung und als 'revolutionärer Agent'. Zuletzt wird der Kontrakt zwischen Zuhause und der schulischen Verwendung von Technologien und die daraus sich ergebenden Auswirkungen auf das Lernen betrachtet.     

'The Trouble with Our Schools': A media construction of public discourses on Queensland schools

This paper gives an account of competing public discourses on schooling. In particular, it investigates one newspaper's coverage of the release of an educational report. The paper combines interview data with a critical discourse analysis of newspaper texts to show how media reporting of Queensland schools constructed a preferred discourse on education that represented schools as being in crisis, 'in trouble'. The analysis describes how the paper shaped popular opinion on educational policy through the construction of public discourses of crisis in education. Further, the analysis shows how this discourse positioned particular groups as the authoritative voice on standards in Queensland schools. It shows how, at a time when teacher quality was under question, the media constructed a public discourse that diminished the authority of teachers to speak about education policy, granting that authority to the newspaper's editor, who assumed the people's voice on educational issues. This analysis of the construction of public discourses about education policy gives insights into the media's place in educational policy-making. In so doing, the paper adds to the small body of literature that investigates the relationships between the media and education.     

Unfortunate or scrounger? Ambivalence,stereotype and the adult unemployed

This paper uses Bhabha's concept of colonial discourse to explore how the subject of the educational discourse concerned with the education of the adult unemployed is constituted by a variety of stereotypical representations. The paper examines in some detail a key policy text which appeared at a critical moment in the establishment of REPLAN, a UK policy initiative for the education of unemployed adults, in 1984. It explores how the problem of education for the unemployed adult was made visible, the first arena for analysis in Scheurich's ‘policy archaeology’. A number of ‘regularities’—race, gender, sexuality, pro‐fessionalization, class and governmentality—serve to constitute that problem and, to a lesser extent, its solution. Educational policy is seen as a highly problematic play of fantasy and materiality, where policy texts produce and perpetuate inequalities. This critical reading attempts to subvert official discourse on education and unemployment.

there is no reason at all why people should wander about in a loafing and idle manner; if they are not earning their living they ought to be put under some control. (Winston Churchill, 1909).     

Learning to Love the Micro: The discursive construction of 'educational' computing in the UK, 1979-89

The notion of the computer as an inherently 'educational' machine has been a powerful influence on both the conceptualisation and consumption of information technology in the UK over the past 20 years. Most recently, a belief in the teaching and learning capabilities of the computer underpinned much of New Labour's policy agenda during their first term of office, most notably in the form of the 1.6 billion 'National Grid for Learning' initiative. Yet all too often, the high-profile social shaping of computing as 'educational' has been more grounded in rhetoric than in reality, with the 'hype' of the educational computer noticeably at odds with the actual impact of computing technologies in schools and at home. From this background, the present paper explores how the computer became to be so strongly 'configured' as educational during its integration into mainstream British society and culture. In so doing, the paper examines the various actors and routes of transmitting information that were involved in the construction of the computer as an educational machine and, as a result, goes on to consider the underlying motivations behind this process. In asking these questions, the paper focuses on the period 1979-89 as marking the birth of mainstream educational computing in the UK, and therefore identifies and discusses the prevailing influences of the incumbent Conservative government, the burgeoning home computer industry as well as the print and broadcast media as powerful actors in the formative discursive shaping of 'educational' computing. Having mapped out these shaping forces, the paper concludes by considering the implications of the on-going trend towards the educational mythologising of information technology in British society.     

Governance and knowledge transformations in educational administration: Greek responses to global policies

This article explores the localisation of the global and European discourse of educational governance in the Greek education system through the changes that have been introduced in the field of education administration since 2009 by the then socialist government. Our research aims to contribute to the critical policy literature on the spreading marketisation and privatisation in the governing of education around the world and in Europe – through the adoption of New Public Management and Educational Leadership models. In developing our theoretical perspective, we use the Foucauldian concepts of governmentality and discourse, and in order to conceptualise power and control relations in the organisation, transmission, acquisition, and evaluation of pedagogical knowledge, we draw on Bernstein's theory of symbolic control. Our study has examined how the field of education administration is governed through power and knowledge transformations. We trace these transformations by analysing systematically the pedagogic discourse through which the global governance discourse is relayed and becomes a ‘regime of truth’ within public policy and practice in Greece. We argue that such changes have significant implications for everyday educational practice and for the kinds of knowledge that are considered legitimate, and they may affect educational professionals' subjectivities in fundamental ways.     

Portuguese,French and British discourses on colonial education: Church–State relations,school expansion and missionary competition in Africa, 1890–1930

This article draws a comparison between the Portuguese in relation to British and French discourses on overseas educational policies at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century until the 1930s. It focuses on three main colonial educational dynamics: school expansion (comparing the public and private sectors); State–Church relations (comparing these relationships at the European and colonial levels); and missionary competition (comparing Catholic with Protestant strategies towards educational incorporation). Colonial discourse is seen here as a power‐knowledge discourse aimed at constructing the colonial subjects as individuals, enabling them to imagine themselves as belonging to a particular cultural polity. The article intends to show how cross‐national discourses on education affect the principles on which theories of schooling are built and the ways in which they influence the first attempts to systematize pedagogical and school models in the colonial peripheries. On the other hand, it tries to understand, within government technologies of domination, the conflicting views, negotiations and ambiguities between global policy formulation and local school system implementation. In this sense, the author sought to analyse the different ways in which concepts such as ‘assimilation’, ‘civilizing mission’, ‘adapted education’, and ‘learning by doing’ were mobilized and appropriated into the colonial education discourses in order to legitimize particular governmental strategies. Two main ideas run through the text: the first attempts to demonstrate the existence of discontinuities between official educational ideologies at home and local system and school expansion strategies in the colonies. The second claims that educational borrowing from other colonies at the Empires' peripheries was, more often that is thought, a crucial feature of colonial educational discourse.     

Teacher education in France under the Hollande government: reconstructing and reinforcing the republic

Successive republican governments in France have constructed a complex educational context, which is rhetorically committed to a myth of provision of educational equality of opportunity whilst in practical terms it is characterised by a system focused on the production and reproduction of elites. This article aims to consider the political drivers and levers that are transforming French teacher education during the current challenging economic, social and cultural context. It uses a relatively new methodological approach to the analysis of policy evolution and development by applying a critical analysis of discourse, which considers the ways in which teacher education policy is ‘reproduced and reworked’. This is achieved through the discourse analysis of a policy speech made in October 2013 by the then Minister of Education, Vincent Peillon, contextualised by comparisons with reforms enacted by the previous Sarkozy government (masterisation). The article, therefore, utilises a systematic framework that allows analysis at the levels of contextualisation and deconstruction of the text and so highlights developments to date in the arguably unique approach of the Hollande government, driven by the relationship between the republican state and the education system in France. The article also considers how reaction following the Charlie Hebdo attacks of January 2015 afforded opportunities to assert new validity for the teacher education policy espoused within Peillon’s speech.     

Contesting education policy in the public sphere: media debates over policies for the Queensland school curriculum

This paper investigates the work of media discourses on education policy in public debates over the Queensland school curriculum. It draws on theories of discourse, theories that have recently influenced the field of policy sociology, to outline a conceptualization of policy and media texts as discourses in the public sphere. In so doing, it notes the significant contribution such public discourses on education make to the policy process. The paper employs critical discourse analysis to investigate the discursive constructions of curriculum during one particular policy initiative. The analysis focuses on newspaper debates over the inclusion of a subject called Health and Physical Education (HPE) in the Queensland secondary school curriculum. The paper shows how educational policy issues were discursively constituted and contested through the construction of public discourses on education policy. In particular, it demonstrates how such public discourses worked to construct authoritative voices on educational policy. The paper concludes with a call to teachers and policymakers to seek opportunities to construct an authoritative public voice on issues of education policy.     

The cultural politics of national testing and test result release policy in South Korea: a critical discourse analysis

This paper examines the ideological construction of educational discourses embedded within the South Korean print media. Significantly, these discourses have recently promoted the resurrection of a sweeping national testing and test results release policy. Through careful examination of the “test plus release” policy, the authors show how the government has achieved hegemonic power by shaping public opinion through the national testing contexts. Drawing on a critical discourse analysis of educational policy texts from the government and top 10 print media sources, this paper analyses how discourses on “accountability”, “the right to know” and “the fairness of the tests” have been produced, reproduced and recontextualized to favour particular perspectives. The authors also examine how government and influential print media discourses interact with political and cultural factors such as “acclaiming the evaluative state”, “education fever” and “meritocratic beliefs” to achieve public consent for the new “test plus release” policy.     

Against the Dark: Antiblackness in Education Policy and Discourse

I argue that analyses of racial(ised) discourse and policy processes in education must grapple with cultural disregard for and disgust with blackness. This article explains how a theorization of antiblackness allows one to more precisely identify and respond to racism in education discourse and in the formation and implementation of education policy. I contend that deeply embedded within racialized policy discourses is not merely a concern about disproportionality or inequality, but also a concern with the bodies of Black people, the signification of (their) Blackness, and the threat posed by the Black to the educational well-being of other students. Using school (de)segregation as an example, I demonstrate how policy discourse is informed by antiblackness, and consider what an awareness of antiblackness means for educational policy and practice.     

‘Will I learn what I want to learn?’ Usable representations, ‘students’ and OECD assessment production

Amid growing debates around international assessment tools in educational policy, few have critically examined how students themselves are cast in policy tool production processes and discourse. Drawing on Stuart Hall's concept of representation, we show how higher education (HE) ‘students’ are constructed, fixed and normalized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) initiative. Based on an analysis of AHELO texts, we argue that the OECD, during the early stages of test production, fixes and circulates the meaning of ‘students’ as represented objects. We identify and analyze two distinct representational practices at work in AHELO texts: classifying and organizing, and marking. We posit that by fixing images of the student as an object of learning and as a consumer–investor subject, the OECD creates ‘usable’ representations of ‘students’ to claim jurisdiction over teaching and learning in HE and to justify intervention through standardized testing.     

Let them eat Shakespeare: prescribed authors and the National Curriculum

In this article, we examine the debate that surrounds prescribed reading lists in the English National Curriculum. In particular, we attempt to locate the role which ideas about heritage and social and moral values have played in constructing this debate. We begin by examining the English National Curriculum's origin in the 1980s as a conservative exercise in stemming cultural crisis, and the discourse about literature's role in the curriculum which this helped construct. We then examine how this discourse has influenced, and continues to influence, the educational policy of prescribing a list of authors and consider the assumptions that are embedded in this policy. Finally, we reflect upon how the material conditions of the classroom provide a site of resistance, or difficulty, for the officially sanctioned discourse concerning literature's role in the curriculum.     

Children's participation in school grounds developments: creating a place for education that promotes children's social inclusion

This paper advances the idea that ‘education for the social inclusion of children’ is similar but different to ‘inclusive education’ as it has come to be understood and used by some authors and UK government documents. ‘Inclusive education’ tends to carry an inward emphasis on the participation of children in the education system (with discussions on school culture, transitions, truancy, exclusion rates, underachievement, and school leaving age). In contrast, education for the promotion of children's social inclusion requires an outward emphasis on children's participation in ‘mainstream’ society while they are still children. The latter emphasis is seen to be lacking in educational policy discourse in Scotland though a recent shift in policy towards education for active citizenship is noted. Examples are provided to show how many policy statements enact a limitation on the scope for education to promote children's social inclusion by emphasizing children's deficits as social actors and focussing on the ‘condition’ of social exclusion. The paper draws on an empirical study of children's participation in changing school grounds in Scotland. The analysis shows how the enclosure of learning in books, classrooms and normative curricula was challenged. Learning from school grounds developments was constructed relationally and spatially, but the scope of what was to be learned was often delineated by adults. The paper closes with a discussion of how education that promotes the social inclusion of children will benefit from seeing both children and adults as current though partial citizens and using socio-spatial opportunities for the generation of uncertain curricula through their shared and/or differentiated participation.