Played or Player: Education, Technologies and Organisational Politics

Abstract

This interdisciplinary work lies at the intersection of education, technology and political sociology. It is intended to contribute to the politicisation of educational technologies, something that so far seems not to have explicitly constituted a major component of the international contemporary theoretical literature. It addresses the research question: How have higher education components acted politically (and/or been politically acted upon) in relation to educational technologies? This question is addressed through a naturalistic investigation of a Saudi university, analysing interviews, observations and documents. Analysis of the raw data in line with the grounded theory approach pointes to four key themes: "Politicising Actors," "De-Politicising Actors," "Politicised Actors" and "De-Politicised Actors." From these themes can be grounded a theory: that educational technologies entail a political game involving either players or played. This can imply that, in Saudi academic circles, political power appears not to have been fairly distributed. The political recommendation therefore is that there is a need, at least temporarily, for prioritisation of a "left-wing politics" of educational technologies that seeks political fairness.