Abstract
Duggan interrogates the claim that young people are underprepared for the so-named ‘digital revolution’. He examines how digital disruption has been mobilised in ways that render their lives visible to technical, instrumental, and economic intervention by both domestic, and increasingly, global actors. Duggan offers a novel reading of how technology is positioned within discussions about what are considered ‘desirable’ educational futures, and by whom. It draws together an archive of key reports and initiatives by the World Economic Forum (WEF), global management consulting firms McKinsey & Company and the Boston Consulting Group, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) emerging in the wake of the global financial crisis. A key contribution of this chapter is in investigating the knowledge-producing and knowledge-positioning practices these firms engage in with particular concern to how they frame the ‘future’.
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Notes
- 1.
It is worth noting that not all commentators agree with Mourshed et al.’s characterisation that the Arab Spring was an inherently youth-led movement. For an excellent analysis of this, see Tufecki’s (2017) Twitter and Tear Gas.
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Duggan, S.B. (2019). The Hard and Soft Networks of Digital Disruption. In: Education Policy, Digital Disruption and the Future of Work. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30675-5_4
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