New governing experts in education: Self-learning software, policy labs and transactional pedagogies

Citation

Williamson B (2014) New governing experts in education: Self-learning software, policy labs and transactional pedagogies. In: Fenwick T, Mangez E & Ozga J (eds.) World Yearbook of Education 2014: Governing Knowledge: Comparison, knowledge-based technologies and expertise in the regulation of education. World Yearbook of Education, 2014. London: Routledge, pp. 218-231. http://routledge-ny.com/books/details/9780415828734/

Abstract
The governance of education is increasingly intertwined with database technologies.This chapter examines the emergence of the ‘public policy lab’ as a new actor ineducational governance with governing expertise in data technologies and techniques. Drawing on a study of the think tank Demos, the social enterprise the Innovation Unit, and Nesta (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) in England, the chapter shows how these organizations promote themselves as intermediary governing experts. Utilising new software technologies, they exercise the capacity to diagnose the problems of contemporary schooling, and to activate the competencies of learners as governing resources to solve those problems.

Keywords
governance; policy labs; intermediaries; education policy; algorithms; big data; software