Neoliberal technological devices and articulations of teaching young children: A case study of preservice teachers using iPads in their teacher education program

Abstract

The global shift toward neoliberalism continues to impact early childhood in numerous ways. One example of this shift is the push by education stakeholders for the incorporation of technology into the teaching of young children. Advocates contend implementing such technology in the classroom will increase children’s academic performance and provide them with the skills needed to attain well-paying jobs in the future. Such rhetoric creates a new set of challenges for early educators who seek to resist this neoliberal shift toward individualism and the framing of education as a process of learning, earning, and consuming. The case study examined in this article begins to address this issue by investigating how utilizing iPads in the process of becoming a teacher affected a sample of preservice teachers’ articulations of their roles as educators. Investigating and analyzing their experiences provides members of the early childhood community with steps they might take to assist early educators in framing their roles as teachers through democratic conceptions of practice that they can then implement within their early education context.

Overview of Professional Digital Competence of Teachers in the DKI Jakarta Regional Mobilizing Ecce Unit

“…ICT has an impact on changes in various sectors of life including education (Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., Freeman, A. &;Giesinger, C., 2017;Brown & Englehardt, 2019;Starkey, 2020). The use of information and communication technology in education can support the achievement of learning outcomes (Cueva & Inga, 2022;Sudarti et al, 2020), mass dissemination of knowledge, The use of technology in education gives great hope to improve the quality of education and to produce a wise and knowledgeable generation who will manage the country in the future (Hasin &;M Nasir, 2021).…”

The security economics of EdTech: vendors’ responsibility and the cybersecurity challenge in the education sector

“…They analyse the evolution of the EdTech industry and the economics, political structures and power relations produced by digitalising education (Mirrlees and Alvi, 2019; Regan and Khwaja, 2019). Some studies, for example, view EdTech as a form of commercialisation of knowledge and a neoliberal shift that transforms education into a process of consumption and therefore disregards the socio-political structures in which such technologies are embedded (Brown and Englehardt, 2019; Jones, 2019; Pietrykowski, 2016). Others critique the aggressive marketing strategies of EdTech vendors that often merge public education interests into corporate concerns and side-line best pedagogical practices by business models that use students’ data for profits (Player-Koro et al , 2018; Teräs et al , 2020).…”

Early childhood teachers’ perceptions and management of parental concerns about their child’s digital technology use in kindergarten

“…Early childhood teachers have the predominate role in organising the classroom (Manassakis, 2020) and can view it as being a feature of their role to individualise learning using digital technologies to prepare children to be successful in the classroom and their future careers (Brown and Englehart, 2019). However, a dissonance exists between the educational perspective regarding young children’s use of digital technologies and the public health guidelines which emphasise risk management and promote minimising screen time (Straker et al, 2018).…”