Problematisation as possibility: using Foucauldian discourse analysis to study digital educational technologies

This paper proposes Foucauldian discourse analysis as a critical methodology for examining the digitalisation of education, drawing on empirical material from a Swedish educational context. Using Foucault’s concept of problematisation, the study examines how digital technologies are constructed discursively across educational policy documents, media texts and empirical data from interviews, surveys and classroom observations. The analysis identifies various discursive formations, such as professionalisation, individualisation, technological determinism, efficiency, modernity and democratisation, which shape the conditions for education in different ways. Key findings reveal that digital resources are often constructed as the individual responsibility of teachers; as tools for individualised learning; as market products that enhance efficiency; and as both modernising and potentially harmful forces. These constructions risk fostering isolation among teachers and students, instrumentalising educational processes and reinforcing commercial and technological imperatives at the expense of pedagogical and democratic values. The study demonstrates that Foucauldian discourse analysis can identify discourses in different practices, thereby highlighting the contingent and political nature of digitalisation in education. By problematising assumptions that are generally accepted as truth, this approach opens up possibilities for alternative ways of thinking and acting within educational practices, moving beyond dichotomised debates.