Ross Millen

Introduction

Globalisation creates a continual, reforming pressure on education. One of the most persistent and complex processes that we as educators are witnessing is the digital divide, or the unbalanced distribution of access and participation in the digital world. Although discussions of digital inequality have existed since home computing moved online in the 1990s, Hampton (2010) argued that globalisation does not just connect societies together but that it also reinforces pre-existing inequalities of who will benefit from these online interactions. Fifteen years later, the digital divide remains both embedded and amplified by the rapid integration of artificial intelligence and data-driven educational technologies.

In this essay I will critically examine the digital divide as an aspect of globalisation, analysing its impact on teaching and learning within a further education (FE) context in the United Kingdom. In my own practice as a Computing Lecturer at a coastal FE college, I see the gap between students who possess a high level of digital literacy and those who, up until this stage in their education, have only engaged with technology through smartphones. These inequalities are not limited to just physical access to devices, they extend to differences in problem solving abilities and general computing confidence, skills that are being promoted as essential by policymakers in developing young people that participate in the global information economy. The digital divide highlights the tension between the global drive for digital upskilling and the actual conditions in which students and teachers operate. Through this lens it becomes possible to question how global narratives translate into practice and to recognise that, although often well intentioned, educators remain constrained by the realities of their local education systems.

This analysis is informed by several theoretical perspectives. Robertson’s (1995) concept of glocalisation explains how global technological agendas are deployed into local contexts such as FE Computing. Giddens (1991) and Beck (1992) offer insights into reflexive modernisation and the uncertain paths that lie before educators who find themselves navigating rapid digital development. Biesta (2009) provides a framework through his theory of subjectification, helping me to question whether digital inclusion actually promotes independent and critical learners, or merely compliant users of technology. Recent work by Philbin and Sentance (2025) on generative AI in computing education highlights how modern technologies continue to reinforce rather than resolve global digital deficiencies.

Key Debates in Globalisation and Education

Globalisation is often described as defining the condition of modern society, shaping how ideas, technologies, and workforce move across international borders. In education, it has become a powerful force that influences what knowledge is valued and how institutions shape their purpose and curriculum. The globalisation of education is not a neutral process; it brings with it different views on what education is for and whose interest it serves, shaped by political and economic inputs. Ball (2012) argues that global policy networks have re-framed education around productivity and state competitiveness, while Tomlinson (2013) observes that this has led to an increased emphasis on employability and measurement. Digital competence has therefore become a highly-valued trait, positioning technology as both a means and measure of educational success.

The literature offers several different ways of looking at globalisation’s effects. Global optimists (or hyperglobalists) see it as an unstoppable integration of markets and cultures where the outputs are opportunity and progress. Sceptics view it as a construct that exaggerates international dependency while masking inequalities between nations. The transformationalist position, taken by authors such as Giddens (1991) and Beck (1992), views globalisation as a multifaceted restructuring of social dynamics that produces new forms of risk and reflexivity. For educators, this means working within a system where global economic change and technological innovation continuously reshapes expectations. Teachers are asked to adapt and re-position their professional identities in response to global demands that trickle down from national policy to institutional leadership.

Robertson (1995) develops this further by proposing that globalisation and localisation are not competing forces but intertwined. He discusses how the local is often “produced through global structures,” a process he refers to as glocalisation, in which policies are translated into locally specific practice. What presents as local autonomy is instead a re-development of global norms within a local context. Hampton (2010) supports this by demonstrating how digital connectivity reinforces pre-existing social hierarchies rather than equalising them. When brought together, their work suggests that global education goals, especially those targeting digital inclusion, must be explored in context-specific terms, shaped by cultural and economic inequalities.

In my own FE setting, global digital transformation is translated into institutional strategies to promote digital upskilling and readiness for employment. Yet these ambitions are constrained by funding, inconsistent course offerings, and the varied digital literacy levels of students. This reflects Robertson’s (1995) view that the global and local integrate with one another; FE colleges act as spaces where the internationalisation of education is delivered with tailoring to specific regional and institutional contexts.

The marketisation of education has been particularly visible within the FE sector in England since reforms in the early 1990s. Smith (2007) explores how the quasi-market created by the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) forces colleges to compete for funding and students, embedding managerialist practices and reshaping professional identities. Drawing on Habermas, Smith argues that technical rationality colonised the pedagogical world of further education. In this environment, institutional self interest and funding compliance began to outweigh educational values and educator autonomy. These findings echo Ball’s (2003) analysis of performativity as a “technology, a culture and a mode of regulation” that compels teachers to “live an existence of calculation.” Ball’s analysis reveals how educators internalise measurement demands, performing for inspection and data, rather than for learning. He also discusses how such regimes create what he calls “fabrications” of quality, where data masks the reduction in effective teaching methods.

Tomlinson (2013) extends this critique by showing that globalisation has reshaped not only the structure of institutions but also the identities of teachers and students alike. The focus on employability positions education as a form of individual self-advertisement, what he refers to as “identity work” among those expected to continuously prove their worth in the highly competitive job market. In FE, this is seen in both learners and teachers as they are viewed as entrepreneurial subjects: learners as future employees, and teachers as deliverers of industry-demanded skills. This pressure mirrors the neoliberal ideas embedded by the global education economy.

Smith’s findings also expose the contradictions of globalisation: the quasi-market promised efficiency and choice but in practice it reduced the variety of pathways and narrowed options for disadvantaged learners, a pattern that is consistent with the global tendency of neoliberal reforms to prioritise institutional survival and longevity over social equity. In this sense, the FE sector operates in an incredibly small portion of the global education economy where managerialism functions as the local manifestation of global neoliberal values.

The marketisation of education has also intensified what Ball (2003) refers to as the terrors of performativity. Teachers and institutions are measured by data and compliance indicators rather than by the quality of learning and development in the classroom. Technology plays a key role in this change, with immediate access to class analytics, digital notebooks, and online study programmes promising a more efficient and modern method, but this often reinforces managerial oversight. Biesta (2009) highlights a similar trend on an international scale; he describes how the “age of measurement” prioritises accountability and comparability over questions of purpose. He argues that systems focused on what works risk valuing what is measurable over what is meaningful. This resonates strongly with the FE sector’s quasi-market culture in which educators are compelled to demonstrate measurable success while broader aims of socialisation and subjectification are marginalised.

Selwyn (2010) builds on this discussion by calling for what he terms a “state-of-the-actual” view of educational technology. Rather than celebrating every new platform as progress, he urges us to look more closely at how technology is actually used, and within what kinds of institutions. His point is that technology is never neutral and it carries the values, assumptions, and power structures of the systems that adopt it. This feels particularly true in FE, where tools designed to make teaching more efficient often end up increasing managerial oversight and compliance tracking. What begins as innovation can quickly turn into another way of monitoring teachers, echoing Biesta’s (2009) concern that accountability is taking precedence over authenticity in education.

From a sociological standpoint, Giddens’ (1991) notion of reflexive modernisation and Beck’s (1992) work take this further into the impacts on individuals. Both authors discuss how individuals are compelled to manage uncertainty caused by rapid technological development and the following social change. For FE educators, this is experienced in the form of demands to constantly upskill and maintain current industry knowledge, adapt to policy changes, and update curriculum to integrate emerging technologies. In this sense, the learner identities described by Tomlinson (2013) are products of what Beck (1992) refers to as “manufactured uncertainty,” whereby the pressure of managing structural inequality is dispersed onto individuals.

When brought together, these contrasting perspectives produce a paradox. Globalisation promises an inclusive and fluid mobility through technology, however it simultaneously deepens inequalities by privileging those already positioned to benefit from digital access and literacy. The literature suggests that rather than being a neutral process of modernisation, globalisation in education operates as a complex network of economic, identity, and performative pressures. Understanding this paradox provides the basis for the next section, which examines how the digital divide presents itself within education policy and everyday practice. By comparing local FE experiences within these wider theoretical discussions, it is possible to see globalisation as a day-to-day reality that shapes who is able to participate, and what it truly means to be digitally educated in a globalised sector.

The Digital Divide as a Global Issue

The digital divide is often described as a gap in access to technology, but in reality it is a much deeper problem rooted in social and economic inequality. Hampton (2010) showed that increasing connectivity does not automatically lead to greater inclusion; instead, it often reinforces existing hierarchies. Selwyn (2010) makes a similar point, warning that we need to look beyond the stories told about digital learning and focus on how technology is actually used within everyday institutional settings. Together their arguments suggest that the divide is not a temporary issue that can be fixed by distributing more devices, but a long-term feature of globalisation itself.

At a global level, digitalisation has been portrayed as a solution to social and economic challenges. The OECD (2019) described “thriving in a digital world” as depending on citizens developing future-ready skills and engaging in lifelong learning. The Department for Education’s Skills for Jobs White Paper (DfE 2021) mirrors this language, positioning Further Education as the driver of a “high-skill, high-productivity economy.” Both policies treat digital competency as a route to economic growth rather than as a question of equity. The European Union’s (2019) Key Competences for Lifelong Learning framework takes a broader view, placing digital skills alongside cultural, civic and personal development. The difference in tone is important: the EU links digital literacy with wider participation and inclusion, whereas the DfE focuses more narrowly on employability.

Robertson’s (1995) concept of glocalisation helps in explaining why such differences appear. Global education agendas are rarely adopted verbatim. They are reshaped by local conditions, politics, and institutional culture. In the FE sector these global pushes for digital transformation conflict with local realities of funding constraints, inconsistent infrastructure, and widely differing levels of digital literacy. Colleges become the point where ambitious international policies meet localised limitation, a good example of how global forces are filtered and re-interpreted through local contexts.

Tomlinson (2013) argues that globalisation has reshaped education around the language of employability, turning learners and teachers into “entrepreneurial selves” who must continually demonstrate value. This links closely with Brown, Lauder and Ashton’s (2011) idea of the opportunity trap. They show that the promise of mobility through education has been replaced by positional competition: everyone gains qualifications, but the number of desirable jobs remains limited. Within this framework, the global push for digital upskilling risks reproducing inequality by creating endless competition rather than genuine opportunity.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how fragile this optimism really was. OECD (2021) admitted that “digital divides became learning divides” as students struggled to access online education during school and college closures. In my own FE context, the pattern was identical. A few students joined lessons from gaming laptops over fast broadband connections, while others relied on mobile phones or unstable Wi-Fi. What appeared to be disengagement was often a lack of access, quiet space, or digital confidence. The pandemic made visible what had long been submerged—that digital inclusion cannot be separated from broader social inclusion.

Brown et al. (2011) connect these inequalities to the way global capitalism uses technology to manage work. Their discussion of Digital Taylorism shows how technology decomposes complex tasks and monitors workers in the name of efficiency. This mirrors Selwyn’s (2010) observation that technology in education often extends managerial oversight rather than empowering teachers. Philbin and Sentance (2025) draw a similar conclusion in their review of AI in computing education, finding that most uses of AI simply replicate or amplify existing practices rather than transform them. Across both industry and education, technology promises innovation but often strengthens existing hierarchies.

Brown et al. also describe how the expansion of education has broken the link between qualifications and prosperity. Despite more people gaining higher-level qualifications, wages have stagnated and job security has declined. This matches what many FE students experience after completing digital or technical qualifications that promise entry into the IT sector but lead to short-term or low-paid roles. The assumption that more education automatically leads to better outcomes no longer holds true.

Ball (2003) and Biesta (2009) help to explain what this means for education itself. Ball describes performativity as a culture in which teachers are judged through data rather than professional judgement. Biesta argues that this “age of measurement” has shifted attention from questions of purpose to questions of performance, valuing what can be counted over what truly matters. In FE, digitalisation has reinforced this trend: educators are expected to evidence impact through online systems, while students interpret learning as completing digital checklists instead of developing independence and curiosity.

During and after the pandemic, these performative pressures intensified. Governments celebrated rapid online upskilling as a success story, but as Brown et al. (2011) explain, such reforms often create social congestion—a situation where more people chase the same limited opportunities. As unemployment grew, millions joined online training schemes, however the number of stable jobs did not increase. Therefore the divide operates not only between those with and without technology but also between those able to turn education into real opportunity and those left behind by structural limits. FE training providers sit directly within this crossroads where teachers are urged to close skills gaps that are continuously expanded by wider economic forces beyond the college’s control.

Scott’s (2013) commentary “Kids Can’t Use Computers” offers a smaller-scale view of the same issue. He observed that many young people, though surrounded by technology, lack a real understanding of how it actually works. I see this daily. Students confident on social media often struggle to navigate file systems, networks or code. It underlines Selwyn’s (2010) point that digital literacy is not innate but must be taught deliberately, through opportunities to explore and make mistakes. In computing education, this means going beyond surface familiarity towards critical and technical understanding.

UNESCO (2021) presents an alternative to the economic framing of digital policy. Its report “Re-imagining Our Futures Together” calls for a new contract for education based on cooperation, inclusion, and sustainability. It argues that technology should strengthen communities rather than competition. Brown et al. (2011) end The Global Auction with a similar takeaway, encouraging societies to move beyond human-capital thinking towards partnerships that value the quality of work and life. These perspectives re-centre education as a collective and moral good, echoing Biesta’s notion of subjectification to help learners become thoughtful, independent citizens rather than compliant participants in the system.

In my own classroom these ideas shape how I teach computing. Using Linux and open-source tools allows students to see what sits beneath the interface, encouraging exploration and problem-solving. This approach also challenges the assumption that young people are naturally digitally fluent. Many are not. By slowing the pace and focusing on understanding rather than task completion, students begin to develop the confidence and autonomy that policy documents often claim to support but rarely make space for.

The digital divide is not just a technical problem, but a reflection of how globalisation shapes education through economics, policy, and culture. The OECD’s optimism, the DfE’s market orientation and the performative pressures of FE all feed into what Brown et al. (2011) call the opportunity trap. However alternatives exist; the EU’s holistic competence framework and UNESCO’s human-centred vision both point towards a more balanced future. Bridging these global narratives with the realities of local classrooms remains the central challenge for educators. Closing the divide will not come from faster internet or new devices alone, but from re-examining who education is for and ensuring that digital progress serves learning rather than the reverse.

Identity, Agency, and Practice

The global and national currents that shape education policy trickle down to influence how teachers and learners see themselves within the system. As discussed, globalisation has redefined education to focus on economic performance and digital skills. Within the FE system this is embodied through layers of accountability and data reporting that position teachers as deliverers of measurable outcomes rather than autonomous professionals.

Ball (2003) describes this as the “existence of calculation,” where educators aim for goals set out by inspection guidelines. O’Leary’s (2013) study of lesson observations in FE colleges expands on this; he notes how the culture of graded surveillance has effectively normalised performative-focused behaviours. Teachers described the experience as “play the game,” delivering safe, pre-planned lessons that would meet grading criteria rather than responding flexibly to learners’ needs. This reflects my own experience in FE. Post-observation discussions often focus on formatting, how I track learners from the content delivered, referencing to schemes of work, with less emphasis placed on curiosity and engagement. The process can feel less about development and more about monitoring data processes and compliance.

For FE educators, these systems also cause a re-negotiation of professional identities. Smith (2007) argued that the incorporation reforms of the 1990s created a quasi-market culture that prioritised efficiency and self-preservation over building a staff community with shared purpose. Within this environment, teachers are encouraged to see themselves as generators of measurable outcomes. Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson (2015) however discuss that agency is not something an individual simply possesses but instead it emerges from the interplay of personal beliefs, professional experience, and the institutional systems that we operate within. Their model describes how agency is developed through three different aspects: the iterational (to draw on past experience), the projective (considering future possibilities), and the practical-evaluative (decision-making in the present). This is particularly relevant in FE where teachers balance multiple expectations, meeting compliance targets while still acting in the students’ best interests.

I find that this model helps me reflect on my own practice. While I cannot alter national policy or funding priorities, I can exercise my agency through everyday decisions. Using Linux and open-source software gives students access to the inner workings of operating systems in place of pre-packaged interfaces. Assessment tasks that emphasise troubleshooting, scripting and networking ensure that “digital ability” means understanding, not just use. I try to build in opportunities for discussion and safe failure through pair programming, code reviews, and short reflection activities to foster the development of judgement. These choices appear small, but they align with my beliefs that education goes past performative reporting.

O’Leary’s recommendation to move from judgemental to developmental observation sits well with this approach, allowing dialogue to replace grading and develop professional trust. Brookfield’s (2017) notion of critical reflection supports the same goal; interrogating assumptions is both ethical and practical because it re-focuses attention on learning over display. By adopting pedagogies that encourage curiosity and independence, even when systems push towards monitoring and metrics, teachers model the subjectification Biesta describes. This, for me, is the most realistic path to sustaining a professional identity in a globalised, data-heavy environment: remaining aware of global narratives, then translating them to local context with integrity.

Conclusion

The discussions through this essay have shown that the digital divide is not just about who has access to technology but about how global pressures shape the conditions in which people teach and learn. Globalisation has turned digital skills into a currency, with policies from OECD, DfE and other bodies promoting upskilling as the silver bullet for social mobility and economic growth. But in practice the benefits are unevenly distributed. In the FE sector, these global ambitions are filtered through constraints of funding, management oversight, and inspection systems that prioritise performance data above meaningful learning. The result is a local equivalent of what Brown, Lauder, and Ashton call the “opportunity trap,” in which everyone is expected to participate in upskilling, but few gain tangible benefits.

What this analysis highlights is that the digital divide is not only technical but structural, embedded in education and situated within a wider culture of measurement and accountability. O’Leary’s findings on surveillance and Brookfield’s ideas of critical reflection encourage a more developmental approach that values dialogue, trust, and authentic learning experiences. In my own teaching, using problem-based projects and industry standard tooling has become a small but meaningful way of resisting performativity and fostering curiosity and independence in my students.

Narrowing the digital divide will not come from the distribution of more devices or faster internet connections, but from re-centring education around people and purpose. If we can use technology to build understanding, collaboration, and critical thinking, instead of just measuring performance, we will edge closer to a form of globalisation that will genuinely serve learners instead of systems.

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