Programming power: policy networks and the pedagogies of 'learning to code'

Abstract

'Learning to code' has transformed from a grassroots movement into a major policy agenda in education policy in England. This chapter provides a 'policy network analysis' tracing the governmental, business and civil society actors now operating in ‘policy networks’ to mobilize learning to code in the reformed National Curriculum. Learning to code provides evidence of how power over the education policy process is being displaced to cross-sector actors such as 'policy labs' that can broker networks across public and private sector borderlines. It also examines how the pedagogies of learning to code are intended to inculcate young people into the material practices and ways of seeing, thinking and doing associated with the professional culture of programmers, the emerging context of solutions-engineering in social and public policy, and with the participatory culture of social media 'prosumption.'