Teachers’ digital practices within the context of digitalisation: An exploratory case study of private education in rural and urban Punjab, India

Abstract

In 2015, the current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, launched the ‘Digital India Campaign’ to empower the Indian economy. This strategic move by the Indian government involved the development of several policy documents, including the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, that establishes the new direction of education for Indian schools. On paper, these initiatives anticipate massive transformations to how schools, and the practices of the agents assisting these systems, are organised. In practice however, it is still unclear how these directives have affected schools’ and teachers’ day-to-day activities. This study specifically focuses on digital initiatives within schools, aiming to unearth exactly that.

Considering the launch of digital initiatives in education under the Digital India Campaign and NEP 2020, this research study aimed to investigate teachers’ digital teaching practices in private schools situated in both rural and urban areas of Punjab, India. Bourdieu’s theoretical tools, such as habitus, field, doxa, and capital, along with Foucault’s conception of power through governmentality, serve as the theoretical lenses that explore teachers’ dispositions and their subjective influences on teaching and learning practices within the context of these digital initiatives. This research adopted an exploratory case study methodology, employing iterative mixed methods for data collection to understand the interplay between digital initiatives in education and teachers’ use of digital technologies. Two schools - one in the rural and the other in the urban region of Punjab, India – are examined to explore how the school ethos and teachers’ digital practices are shaped by the implementation of digital initiatives under the Digital India Campaign. Document analysis, online questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews with teachers from both schools illustrate their experiences and understanding of using digital technologies within the framework of policy directives.

The research findings, drawing on a thematic analysis of the data indicate that these digital initiatives are grounded in a neoliberal ideology, which emphasises self-evaluation, self-improvement, and continuous professional development for teachers through digital platforms. Research findings further suggest that teachers perceive technology mainly as a mechanism of information transfer and/or as a means of classroom control. For some teachers, this raises concerns about the possibility of technology replacing teachers in delivering knowledge. An analysis of the data using Bourdieu’s and Foucault’s theoretical tools suggests that implementation of the top-down digital initiatives relies heavily on the school environment, leadership style, and teachers' teaching experiences.