“Empowering the World’s Poorest Children”? A Critical Examination of One Laptop per Child

Abstract

The worldwide implementation of educational technology is underpinned by a wide range of interests and influences located at international, national, and local levels. Rather than being a globalized and uniformly determining force, any form of “educational technology” is itself dependent upon a number of social, cultural, political, and economic interests. Of course, this is not to deny that educational technologies are associated with some significant changes in education around the world. Yet anyone wishing to understand fully the nature and outcomes of educational technologies’ use has to look far beyond the technical specifications and features of specific devices and gadgets. As has been argued by a succession of critical commentators over the past 30 years, educational technology needs to be described and discussed as a set of sociotechnical arrangements (Young, 1984; Kerr, 2003; Selwyn, 2012).

OLPC’s mission is to empower the world’s poorest children through education

—OLPC Mission statement

This is a revised and updated version of “One Laptop per Child: A Critical Analysis”—Chapter 7 (pp. 127–146) in N. Selwyn (2013), Education in a Digital World, London, Routledge. The author would like to thank the original publishers for their permission to republish this work.