Southwestern Laptop Learning Initiative (SLLI): Policy, politics, and theories affecting the regulative environment of the Internet

• Main Author: Duran, James D
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2007
• Subjects: Curriculum development; Educational technology; Initiatives; Internet; Learning; Political science; Political theory
• ISBN: 9780549405573; 0549405577

The intent of this dissertation was to understand policies emanating from the Southwestern Laptop Learning Initiative. Utilizing critical discourse analysis and interviewing methods the research question focused on a dependable description of the SLLI—how public officials interpreted the implementation and how it was implemented in public schools. The researcher sought the interpretation of the regulative environment of the internet, specifically, (1) how the SLLI controlled the access to curricula over the internet with policies and (2) how the SLLI policies affected the access or constriction of information. Factors allowing or constricting the access to information were for example policy, socioeconomic disparities [digital divide], lack of communication between policy-makers and teachers, and allocation of funds or lack of funds. The critical discourse analysis used three principal forms of inquiry. The three features used to distill the data from the policy were operationalization, hegemony, and interpretation. Operationalization sought to understand how processes were enacted, how processes became new ways of being and new relationships, how processes became inculcated by agents, and the degree to which processes became successful and resistant to change. Hegemony is a more specific form of operationalization; it is the imposition of an educational program. It was used to extract and describe sociopolitical groups controlling power in the SLLI. Furthermore, hegemony was employed as a method to analyze orders of discourse extracted from Southwestern state gubernatorial addresses. It was utilized to describe the level of prioritization and success of the SLLI. Finally, hegemony was executed as a means to explain the relations of contestation between sociopolitical groups in an ongoing struggle over the educational apparatus of Southwestern state. Interpretation of the SLLI was extracted from the voices of the state officials as they explained how they participated in the program. For example, their beliefs over socioeconomic inequalities in technology [digital divide], preventing the access to pornography by public school students on the internet, educational funding priorities, and the way they viewed themselves as part of the educational process in Southwestern state shaped the SLLI.