The Italian edtech market in the making

Abstract

In this article, we explore how digitalisation, digital education policies and the strategies of the edtech sector are re-crafting education as a site for the extension of the economic form of the market. Drawing on the work of Michel Callon and focusing on the case of Italy, we consider how policy, commercialisation and changes in educational practice contribute to complex, chaotic and incoherent processes that coalesce in the making of edtech markets. Using network ethnography, we show how three specific edtech market agencements were evident during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in Italy: a); the detachment of edtech from profit through solidarity, re-branding and qualification; b) reintermediation, or the work for the stabilisation of the edtech market through networking and meetingness; and c) the soliciting of the edtech market through affection. What emerges is the description of an over-determined market, where a complex combination of crises, policies and business are played out in a network of relationships that serve the interests of government and digital capital through the production of needs and necessities into which schools and teachers are inducted.