ABSTRACT
It should now be clear that schooling in the digital age is a complex, compromised and often contradictory affair. Although schools and schooling may not have been transformed completely, digital technologies certainly lie – for better and for worse – at the heart of the processes and structures of contemporary schooling. It therefore follows that although digital technology is unlikely – at least in the short to medium term – to be the stimulus for any far-reaching revolution in the nature of schools and schooling, this is not to say that technology cannot act as a focus for improvement in the immediate future. This final chapter therefore takes care to avoid either a false optimism or a fatal cynicism – recognising instead ‘what might be done, even while remaining fully aware of inauspicious forces of circumstance’ (Ball 2007b, p.154). Over the last eight chapters of this book, a strong case has been made for understanding the politics of schools technology. Previous chapters have shown, for example, how the logic of digital technology use in schools currently often follows – in Torin Monahan’s words – a set of ‘neo-liberal orders’ with technology use replicating and sometimes reconfiguring the long-standing articulation between education and wider structures of society, economy, politics and culture. Moreover, it has been argued that schools technology is often best understood in terms of power, inequality, democracy, structure and agency. These are all highly ‘inauspicious’ and powerful forces of circumstance to work within and against.
