Able-mindedness and citizenship in education policy discourses on digital skills

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing from critical disability studies and cultural studies, this article unpacks cultural understandings of digital abilities. We analyse policy documents on digital education as cultural texts which communicate cultural values. Methodologically, we understand policy ideas as deriving from the larger culture. Our analysis first explores how abilities are connected to economic growth, as well as what kind of history of ideas frames this presumption. Second, it explores the assumption of constantly changing technologies and the workers who must adapt themselves to such a situation. Third, the article interrogates citizenship as a cultural idea within the current policy ideas about digital skills. Our account offers new perspectives on the analysis of biocapitalism and provides a specific analysis of how able-mindedness is foregrounded in digital education. It argues that digitalisation, as a policy matter, intensifies discourses emphasising the development of abilities and that this social tendency is neither value neutral nor necessary.