The relationship between digital education and sustainability is complex and often paradoxical. Here’s my analysis, drawing from the readings:
- The policy-sustainability paradox: Selwyn highlights how digital education is often positioned as inherently sustainable, while Gallagher explicitly points out the contradiction in policy frameworks: “In much of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), growth-based models of international development are increasingly at odds with sustainability and sustainable education… This is partly due to the increasing entanglements of supranational policy pressure, the ambitious educational targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the work of civil society organizations, non-government organisations (NGOs), and the increasing presence and autonomy of commercial actors in shaping local educational agendas” (Gallagher, 2019).
- Material impacts: Macgilchrist et al. emphasize the “planetary scale lifecycle” of educational technology, while Gallagher provides specific examples of impact: “The material of digital education is becoming increasingly concentrated in SSA in e-waste sites like the infamous Agbogbloshie in Ghana… with clear ecological and health concerns” (Gallagher, 2019).
- Global power dynamics: The readings highlight how sustainability is compromised by global power structures. As Gallagher notes: “Education is being renegotiated through an explicit, inexorable link to technology, an explicit call to rapidly construct technological markets for education throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and an implicit erosion of local educational autonomy as a result.”
- Alternative frameworks: The readings propose different frameworks for more sustainable approaches. Selwyn advocates for “digital degrowth” and “radically sustainable education technology.” Gallagher proposes “horizontalism,” explaining that: “Horizontalism refers to positions of society that emphasise networks rather than hierarchical societal structures… [offering] an alternative to the growth-based targets of the SDGs and the entanglements of global actors positioning themselves to meet these targets.”
- Local autonomy and repair: Both Selwyn and Gallagher emphasize the importance of repair and local control. Gallagher specifically notes: “Repair in this context refers to ‘the creative, resourceful, and improvisational work of getting technological systems and artifacts working and keeping them going long beyond their initial points of adoption'”.
- Practical solutions: The readings suggest various approaches to more sustainable digital education: Macgilchrist et al. advocate for “edtech within limits” including:
- Designing for longevity
- Using refurbished hardware
- Encouraging repair
- Developing commons approaches
Gallagher highlights successful examples like: “community-owned internet networks (CN) in sub-Saharan Africa like the Kondoa Community Network in Tanzania… and BOSCO Uganda, which has developed solar-powered community networks in rural Uganda.”
- Future directions: As Selwyn argues, we need to reimagine education technology along “radically different lines – i.e., toward forms of digital technology use that are more humane and sustainable, that strive to be genuinely nourishing, generative and empowering for all, as well as avoiding harmful impacts on the planet’s environment and ecosystems.” Gallagher adds that there is “an explicit need for a rethinking of local educational autonomy in face of policy pressures which are stimulating a largely unsustainable acceleration of educational technology.”
Summarizing thoughts:
The relationship between digital education and sustainability that emerges from these readings demonstrates a complex interplay between environmental impact and social justice. Macgilchrist et al.’s dual emphasis on planetary computing and lived experience provides a framework for understanding how global technological systems intersect with local educational practices. This intersection is especially evident in Gallagher’s work in sub-Saharan Africa, where he argues that technological alternatives must emerge from local autonomy and participatory processes rather than being imposed through global policy frameworks.
The readings collectively argue against superficial “greening” of current educational technology practices. Indeed, they advocate for fundamental restructuring of how we conceptualize digital education. Selwyn’s call for “radically different lines” of thinking aligns with Gallagher’s advocacy for degrowth models, suggesting that sustainable digital education requires more than just environmental consciousness—it demands a complete reimagining of power structures, ownership, and control in educational technology.
Hi! As you will have noticed, this post is not an essay, like my previous posts. I ended up over-indexing on sleuthing this week, searching for digital education projects that are more aligned with ‘digital degrowth’! D’oh!
It is perfectly fine Melissa. I think we are meeting later this week to discuss regardless so happy to continue this a bit. I think sustainability as I mentioned in my audio recording for the week is a bit of a slippery subject so difficult at times to get a handle on it (I gave some cursory ideas on how to do this in my response to Charlotte’s discussion board post). But contend with it we must as it is going to be a significant issue in the years ahead in our field. The reading (not required) on minimal computing is very instructive in this respect seeing things through the lenses of constraints (and noting how constraints can be a positive even powerful thing).
Whether we employ degrowth (or even digital detox!) models, or minimalism, or sociocultural or financial models of sustainability, we are contending with the spectre of capitalism here and the embedness of commercial actors in educational systems. So the drive towards more and more (tech, targets, scale, etc.) is difficult to resist, even if the pedagogical case is sound.
‘The readings collectively argue against superficial “greening” of current educational technology practices.’
Yes indeed and this is something that would make a good line of research for someone either in the field or as a dissertation topic at some point, ie this idea of edtech greenwashing. It does happen quite a bit, largely discursively positioned as an antidote to the large carbon footprint of student mobility (https://www.cpc.ac.uk/docs/WP_102_International_Student_Mobility_and_Sustainability.pdf). AI (and the vast data centres required to run it) are especially problematic in terms of environmental sustainability (https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/06/09/ais-growing-carbon-footprint/) so the ‘antidote’ in some cases more impactful than the problem it was intended to solve. Keep sustainability in mind as we head into the concluding discussions on futures approaches to digital education as it is a good frame for the discussions we will have there.