ABSTRACT
Chapter 5—“Globalizing Higher Education: Platform Imperialism”—contextualizes the United States’ enduring role as the world’s economic, military and media superpower and flags the emergence of “platform imperialism.” The goal of this chapter is to consider how EdTech platforms may intertwine with US imperialism and interrogate how the platformization of higher education interlinks with “platform imperialism.” It focuses on the globalization of US-based universities, EdTech firms and MOOCCs and shows how their attempts to integrate the teachers and learners of poor and developing countries intertwine with US economic might and “soft power” while widening the economic and cultural divides and power asymmetries between the United States and the rest. EdTech’s platform imperialism may exacerbate as opposed to mitigate the existing structural divisions between countries, universities and social groups in the United States and elsewhere.
