In this chapter the author argues that those concerned with the “the way it's going” in public education can learn much from post-colonial theory about the relationship between education research and assessment technologies and education reform policy, curriculum development, and knowledge formation. The author argues that current neoliberal education reform in the US can best be understood through the frame of neocolonialism, where schools and communities take the shape of internal colonies, where teachers, students, and parents have little or no say about the technologies, curricula, and standardized examinations foisted upon them. Education research that supports the current policy paradigm largely benefits researchers, corporations, and policy makers, while ignoring the effects of such policies on students, teachers, and local communities. Such practices, the author suggests, are rooted in a type of colonial thinking and acting that have been rearticulated through the prevailing logic of neoliberalism.
The relationship between CS education research and the SIGCSE community