Critical discourse analysis of educational policies on information and communications technology: Tensions, similarities, and differences in the production of policies in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil

Abstract

The discursive production of information and communications technology (ICT) educational policies has increased worldwide. In Latin America, new strategies have emerged since COVID-19 that have been strengthened. To identify and analyze the tensions and discursive differences in this region, a critical discourse analysis of these policies is proposed in three countries: Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. Two elements proposed by Fairclough have been used complementarily: the three-dimensional conception of discourse and the dimensions of critical discourse analysis. As a result, it is found that logics of technological solutionism are naturalized in educational systems in which historically pedagogical characteristics are stripped from education to attribute them to ICT. Additionally, discursive similarities are found in justifying and structuring ICT inclusion strategies in educational systems. The differences are found in representing training and the educational horizon. It concludes by highlighting the importance of thinking about these policies from three elements: the displacement of what is properly pedagogical towards ICT, inclusion-exclusion that this inclusion represents, and historicity regime which is embedded in the inclusion of technology in educational spaces.