ABSTRACT
One of the remarkable things about Western education is the persistence of technological expectations about education and schooling. This can, for example, be seen in the pressure that governments of many countries put on the educational system to improve its performance, which more often than not means a requirement to deliver specifi c, predetermined outcomes. Such pressure is both exerted on the educational system as a whole, for example through national curricula or international monitoring of student performance and on individual schools, classrooms, and teachers, for example through the publication of school league tables and ever tighter systems of inspection and control.
