The Discursive Construction of the National Grid for Learning
- 1 March 2000
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Oxford Review of Education
- Vol. 26 (1) , 63-79
- https://doi.org/10.1080/030549800103863
Abstract
The National Grid for Learning (NGfL) not only represents the most ambitious educational computing initiative to date but also heralds one of the largest public/private education policy partnerships the UK has even seen. In reflecting the growing influence of market and technological forces the NGfL should, therefore, be treated as a significant education signpost for the new century. Before the initiative reaches full operation a major step in the 'construction' of the Learning Grid has been its formation within government and official discourse. This discursive construction is important inasmuch as it makes an 'ethereal' initiative a tangible concern, shaping expectations among both the education and business communities and consequently influencing the future effectiveness of the NGfL. From this basis, the present article examines how the National Grid for Learning is being discursively constructed by government and official actors at a macro level through policy and advisory documents, official statements and other rhetoric. In doing so the article highlights how the NGfL is being shaped within a restrictive technocratic and determinist discourse, thus conforming to traditional narratives of society and technology. The paper then aims to show how such construction negates crucial social and economic elements of the initiative and threatens, ultimately, to restrict the eventual educational effectiveness of the Grid.Keywords
This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit:
- Educational superhighways ‐ in the public or private interest?Internet Research, 1999
- Why the Computer is not Dominating Schools: a failure of policy or a failure of practice?Cambridge Journal of Education, 1999
- A grid for learning or a grid for earning? The significance of the Learning Grid initiative in UK educationJournal of Education Policy, 1998
- Teachers and Computers: In Control or Being Controlled?Australian Journal of Education, 1997
- THE SOCIAL CHICKEN AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL EGG: EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING AN THE TECHNOLOGY/SOCIETY DIVIDEEducational Theory, 1997
- The Information Superhighway and Post-modernity: The social promise and the social priceComparative Education, 1996
- Reality bytes: Education, markets and the information superhighwayThe Australian Educational Researcher, 1995
- New education in new timesJournal of Education Policy, 1994
- Telling Tales Out of School: Modernist, Critical, and Postmodern “True Stories” about Educational ComputingJournal of Educational Computing Research, 1994
- The information revolution as ideologyMedia, Culture & Society, 1984