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This chapter considers the shaping of schools, schooling and the digital age at a macro-
level of analysis. As outlined in Chapter 3, the social shaping of technology can involve
a wide number of influences. It therefore follows that the use of digital technology in
schools is influenced by a variety of stakeholders and interests long before it enters
the classroom setting. This chapter examines the influence of state policy-making and
policy institutions on schools technology. In particular, it explores the construction
of digital technology use within recent state policy programmes and initiatives. Of
course, the topic of technology use has long been a focus for public sector policy-
making. The 1960s and 1970s saw the governments of many (over)developed industrialised nations react to concerns over the ‘white heat’ of technological development
with a range of`high tech’ public policy drives - especially in areas of public life such
as energy, transport, health and education. With the rise of‘micro-electronics’, countries such as the UK and US saw the launch and re-launch of often indistinguishable
national educational technology policies and local initiatives throughout the 1980s,
with governments and politicians of all political persuasions keen to capitalise on the
kudos of being seen to ‘do something` about new information technologies. While
continuing to be a comparatively high—profile area of state policy-making throughout
the 1980s, educational technology gained a heightened importance with the emergence in the mid-1990s of the internet into mainstream societal use (as compared to
previous relatively niche application in scientific and military domains). From that
time onwards the field of educational technology (and schools technology in particular) has attracted the sustained attention of policy—makers, figuring ever more prominently in the education policy agendas of countries around the world. This chapter
considers what role this high-profile policy-making activity has played in the shaping
of schools and schooling in the digital age - not least in terms of setting an agenda for
what schools technology is and what values are associated with it.