Neoliberal gremlins? How a scheme to help disadvantaged young people thrive online fell short of its ambitions

Numerous academic studies highlight the significant differences in the ways that young people access, use and engage with the Internet and the implications it has in their lives. Trying to address such inequalities is complex, and the outcomes of digital inclusion schemes are rarely uniformly positive or transformative for the people involved. Therefore the hope of such schemes that if sufficiently empowered, incentivised and aspirational, the disadvantaged can use access to technology to transform or transcend what Bourdieu [1992. The logic of practice. Studies in philosophy and education. Cambridge: Polity Press; New Ed edition] calls their ‘class of conditions’ (p. 53) is largely misplaced. This gap between expectation and reality demands theoretical attention. Focusing on a two-year digital inclusion scheme for 30 teenagers and their families in one area of England, this qualitative study analyses why, despite the good intentions of the scheme’s stakeholders, it fell short of its ambitions. Instead, our theoretical analysis explains how the neoliberalist systems of governance that are increasingly shaping the cultures and behaviours of our Internet service providers and schools cannot solve the problems they create.

"Because the families on the scheme had very few of sources of economic, cultural and social capital, they lacked the power of choice. They were unable to choose a different service provider for their Internet connection. They were unaware that they could bring regulatory pressure to bear on Trojan by, for example, complaining to Ofcom (the U.K.’s Internet service regulator) to demand a better service. Consequently, choices were imposed on them by systems of neoliberal governance. Similarly, the schools had often narrowed-down their investment in the scheme’s young people to just getting a C grade in Maths. The schools chose the students’ priorities for them. But these parents were unable to choose a different school for their child. We said in our introduction the global network society is ‘a choice, a choice made by some and working in the interest of some’ (Biesta, 2013, p. 734). Many of the families on this scheme were barely participating in this global network society – using pay-as-go phones to just go on Facebook for example. However, this scheme did not fall short owing to ‘the some’ who were ‘working in the interest of the some’. It was unable to deliver its early promise because Trojan and the schools were governed by neoliberalist systems that only really work for individuals who have the power and privilege to exercise their choice." (Davies, Eynon and Wilkin, 2017: 973).