The googlified teacher. How digital business actors govern practices of teaching

Abstract

Swedish school is embedded in a number of globalization processes, such as international assessments and benchmarking reports, etc. Beside these obvious policy actors, another kind of more hidden governance of school is taking place through actors offering digital educational platforms that organize practices of schooling all over the world, such as Google, Apple and Microsoft. Through digital products, business actors shape what school is; how students learn and how teachers teach. This paper aims to analyze how transnational business actors take place in Swedish schools through digital products and discuss what this means for the professional teacher role. The theories used frame how governance of education is distributed in multilayered networks involving state as well as business companies, NGOs and researchers. The borders between the public and the private sector have blurred and temporary relationships have sometimes replaced administrative structures. It could be claimed that business influence for long has been a part of schooling, through the selling of educational tools. However, this involvement has increased and today it includes teacher training and outsourcing of central parts of schooling. Not at least is this done through the re-organization of education into digital platforms, which effects we only have seen the beginning of. Building on a body of literature on the changed governance of education the paper discusses the consequences of globalization and marketization of education with focus on the role of the teacher in relation to digital platforms. The study builds on interviews with app. 15 edu-preneurs – persons working in business companies – and on analyses of an online course regarding Google’s product G-suite for education. The data are analyzed from the following questions: • How is the teacher’s role in the digital classroom described? • What differs this teaching role from an imagined Other (the traditional teacher)? • How is it motivated in relation to digitalization of teaching and learning? This analysis is then discussed in relation to both business coming with market actors and a historical perspective on how technology is thought of as a game-changer in educational practices. Preliminary analyses of the data point to a role of the teacher as a coach in an increasingly individualized teaching environment. The teacher is not supposed to be the authority, instead s/he should guide and assess students through the platforms, in a way adapted to the individual’s interests and knowledge. A second finding is that there is a strong wish from Google to emphasize 21st century skills such as innovation and creativity through the digital platforms, which correspond with the company culture, but also a strong focus on the individual, rather than the collective. A critical question to discuss is what this individualization means for how we think about education. The paper is relevant for NERA since the use of digital tools such as e.g. Google classroom has been everyday life in many Nordic classrooms, and that digitalization of education mostly have been studied in relation to how to improve teaching and learning, not as a global policy actor