Educational Legitimacy in the Platform Economy: The Case of The Google Teacher Approved Program

In 2020 Google introduced the Google Teacher Approved program to evaluate apps for children under 13 on the Google Play Store. Parental anxieties around educational futures have made the online marketplaces a welcome outlet for parents looking for good quality apps for their children. In this paper we use the concept of educational legitimation to analyse how Google creates educational legitimacy for these applications. We conducted a walkthrough of both the Google Teacher Approved course for developers and the Kids’ section in the Google Play Store. We also interviewed five developers from four different countries who developed apps for children under 13. We argue that the aim of the program is not to assess educational quality, but rather to create educational quality. Google uses ambiguity by design to invoke a sense of educational relevance without needing to make any explicit claims of educational effectiveness. In the Google Teacher Approved program teachers are both appropriated as a signifier of trust and commodified as developers seek ways to capitalise on the aura of quality invoked by having a Teacher Approved badge. We found that the legitimacy of the Google Teacher Approved program was contested within the industry on procedural and consequential grounds. The Google Teacher Approved program is principally a form of self-regulation of controversial monetisation practices, such as the use of ads and in-app purchases. The trustworthiness invoked by teachers is then used to continue these practices in more ‘regulated’ ways, stymying any critique under the guise of teacher approval.