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Governing Through The Network Amil Mohanan Department of Geography, University College London Thesis submitted in fulflment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2015 DECLARATION I, Amil Mohanan confrm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confrm that this has been in- dicated in the thesis. ABSTRACT This thesis examines the relationship between the state, computer networks and their relationship to the government of education. It explores the historical devel- opment of computer networks and the governmental rationalities of education, in addition to an ethnographic study of practices surrounding computer networks at a secondary school in London. This novel approach has looked at interactions between the materiality of networks, their presence in the discourses of national policies and the practices of its end users. It begins by focussing on an early public data network developed at the National Physical Laboratory called the NPL Net- work. This experimental network was built using the idea that networks had to be fexible and adaptable to the needs of its end users rather than the interests of computer manufacturers and network operators. It also looks at the effects that computer networks have had on governmental mechanisms used to regulate schools. The thesis argues that the introduction of the National Grid for Learning and the National Pupil Database have been used to intensify practices of perform- ance management and intelligence testing. Finally, it looks at practices within schools that are afforded by networked forms of government. Broadly, the thesis problematises the idea that networked forms of governance are less coercive than the mechanisms they replace. The thesis demonstrates that networks have caused an intensifcation of power within the education system that has made its mechan- isms more efficient whilst saturating its feld of operation. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Summary of Chapters 8 Networked Liberalism 14 Network Societies and the State 15 Network Forms and Forms of Government 24 From Government to Governance 31 Digital Servitude and Machinic Enslavement 34 ‘Virtual’ Geographies 41 Foucault and Education 47 Conclusion 53 Methodology 55 Research Questions 56 Archival Research 58 Ethnographic Research 60 Refexivity, Positionality and Ethics 66 Conclusion 71 Networks & Nomads 73 Cybernetics: A Nomad Science 76 Cybernetics at NPL 79 From Interfaces to Packet Switching 85 A Rhizomatic Network 89 The State Capture of Networks 93 Nomadic Applications 97 The ARPA Net 101 Table of Contents v TCP/IP and early Inter-networking 105 An Information Superhighway for a Neoliberal World 110 Conclusion 115 Human Capital Technology 117 Eugenics, Technology and Education 119 The Marketisation of Education 130 Neoliberalism in Britain 137 The National Grid for Learning 141 Connecting the Learning Society 142 The Stevenson Report 145 Excellence in Schools 148 Human Capital, Control and Neoliberalism 152 Conclusion 156 Networks of Government 158 Ryedale Secondary School 159 Technology and the Classroom 166 The Electronic Register 170 Seated in Order 175 The Performing Teacher 179 The Classroom of the Future 187 Playing on the Computers 191 Conclusion 201 Conclusion 202 Bibliography 213 Appendix 241 TABLE OF FIGURES 1.1 Excerpt from newspaper article covering the announcement to link 2 qualifcations to income 4.1 The node for the European Informatics Network at NPL, pictured 74 with Roger Scantlebury, Derek Barber and Donald Davies in 1977. 4.2 The NPL Standard Interface for a generalised data processing system 83 4.3 Centralised, Decentralised and Distributed Networks 86 4.4 Hypothetical NPL Digital Communication Network consisting of 88 Nodes (N) and Interface Units (I) 4.5 Golden Age for the Fourth Generation’ by Timothy Johnson from The 95 Sunday Times, 5th May 1968 4.6 Ceefax page created by the BBC for transmission over the EIN 99 Network via NPL 4.7 American President Bill Clinton Installing computer cables at a school 111 with Vice President Al Gore on NetDay Table of Figures vii 5.1 ‘Labour goes for Net gain’ 118 6.1 Layout of the Geography classroom 167 6.2 Screenshot of sample student information from SIMS taken from the 172 company website. 6.3 Venn diagram from SIMS Discover showing attendance, behaviour 176 and lateness information taken from the company website. 6.4 Threshold indicators for a random school shown on the OFSTED 184 School Data Dashboard Website 6.5 Plan of school library 188 6.6 Alphasmart NEO used to administer reading tests 189 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been fortunate to have two supervisors, Dr. Jason Dittmer and Dr. Alan In- gram, who have encouraged and inspired me throughout this process. I am also deeply indebted to all the teachers and students who took me with open arms and made me feel like one of their own whilst I intruded in their lives doing feldwork. I would also like to thank James for looking out for me, and Pooya, for encour- aging me to be nomadic. I would also like to thank my parents and my brother for always believing in me. I am also in eternal debt for the love and support that my wife Shivani has shown me over the last few years. CHAPTER ONE Introduction The education secretary Nicki Morgan, has recently announced that the ‘true worth’ of qualifcations would be determined using data from taxation after stu- dents leave schools (Vaughan, 2015). It was argued by the education secretary that the adoption of new technologies could increase the efficiency of assessment and accountability mechanisms that would bring schools into the ‘digital age’ (see fg- ure 1.1 overleaf ). This announcement alludes to new ways through which students are being governed through technologies that are claimed to be more accurate and efficient than teachers’ assessments of their students. This is an indication of how governmental activity has been transformed by the idea of networks, both as a sociological concept for thinking about the organisation of societies, and as a technical mechanism for linking together disparate physical entities. Computer networks promise a world free of hierarchy where all actors enjoy positions of equivalence through access to information and rights of participation. I argue in this thesis that computer networks could also be used to sustain or even intensify existing social hierarchies and relations. I do this by looking at the way that com- Introduction 2 Nicky Morgan: link qualifications to in- to account, adding: “We have an analogue come to show 'true worth' of different system in the digital age." courses League tables and Ofsted would always be Richard Vaughan, essential, she said, “but there is so much Times Educational Supplement, more we can do”. Parents and their children 21 January 2015 would demand more information as more “choice and competition" were injected into Qualifications could be linked to tax data to the school system, the education secretary show the “true worth” of certain subjects as added… part of the government’s drive to track stu- dents after they leave school, the education She also highlighted how technology could secretary said today… change how students are assessed in the future, citing the work of educationist John Speaking at the education technology show Hattie, which uses regular testing to ascer- Bett in East London this morning, Nicky tain how students are progressing. Morgan said that technology could trans- form accountability, assessment and teach- “By using technology to administer regular ers’ workload in the future… standardised tests, he has transformed the way children learn and the way parents are Ms Morgan told the audience that change able to monitor their child’s progress,” Ms was needed in the way schools were held Morgan said… Figure 1.1—Excerpt from newspaper article covering the announcement to link qualifications to income (repro- duced from Vaughan, 2015) puter networks are used to coordinate the activities of secondary school education in England. Over the past few decades in England we have witnessed education refecting a shift from bureaucratic forms of organisation by Local Education Authorities to networks established between state and non-state actors. One result of this trend has been the recent controversial conversion of local authority schools into academies and free schools sponsored by a diverse range of charities, faith groups and businesses coordinated by central government. The growing involvement of non-state actors in education has been interpreted as evidence of the increasing blurring of boundaries between the state and the market (Junemann and Ball, 2013). Since the 1990s, it has been argued that government by the state has made way for governance through network relations based on heterogeneous actors who are self-organising and opposed to hierarchical forms of bureaucratic organ- isation (Rhodes, 1996). Junemann and Ball (2013: 426) point out that in the English education system, this process has involved a gradual decentralisation and in- Introduction 3 creased autonomy for schools whilst simultaneously increasing central control in classrooms through the prescription of the curriculum and the setting of perform- ance targets for teachers simultaneously. One of the aims of this thesis is to prob- lematise such simple notions of decentralising networks. On an empirical level this thesis primarily addresses a lack of material and practice- oriented studies in the virtual geographies literature. Existing studies are either speculative in manner or lack an empirical focus on interactions between end users and the network itself. This thesis politicises the role of computer networks in the operation of the state, by looking at the nature of the relations they help produce and assess whether they enable forms of domination. It has been argued by Cas- tells (2000) for instance that computer networks have weakened the state because of their ability to ‘deterritorialise’ the nation state.