1st Edition
Public Education in the Digital Age Neoliberalism, EdTech, and the Future of Our Schools
Educational technology is now ubiquitous in schooling, both in P-12 and at universities. Despite the imposition of technology in most aspects of teaching and learning, little attention has been given to the implications educational technology has for healthy student development, humane pedagogy, teacher labor, academic freedom, and the aims of social justice. Rather than merely a set of neutral tools, educational technology is bound up with systems of power and privilege that tend to deepen, rather than confront inequality. In calling for a reassessment of the relationship between schools and technology, this book asks readers to think differently about the role technology can serve in socially just schools.
An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, social justice, politics, and all those interested in the impact technology is having on the education system in the USA.
Introduction 1. Public Education in the Digital Age 2. The Technological Restructuring of Public Education 3. How Did We Get Here? Tracing Digital Education Policy 4. Toward Humanization: Critical Pedagogy in the Digital Age 5. Resisting Technophilia
Biography
Morgan Anderson is Assistant Professor of Social Foundations of Education at the University of Northern Iowa.
‘Anderson provides an in-depth philosophical analysis of the pitfalls of an overreliance on technology in society at large and within the educational landscape. Her contributions are novel and of vital importance. The book is a welcome addition to courses on technology in the classroom, the politics and policy of education, sociology of education, and social foundations of education.’
T. James Brewer, University of North Georgia
‘As the Covid-19 Pandemic accelerated the implementation of educational technologies Morgan Anderson’s Public Education in the Digital Age makes a timely and important intervention in the new digital directions of educational privatization. Her book skewers both the technophilic handovers of public education to technology companies and technological fatalism while getting to the essential question of what role technology should have in public education and a society committed to democracy. This is crucial reading for scholars, teachers, administrators, and anyone interested in educational justice, new technology, and the policy, politics, and theory behind the latest directions of public education.’
Kenneth Saltman, University of Illinois Chicago
