Taking the sociological imagination to school: an analysis of the (lack of) impact of information and communication technologies on education systems

Abstract This article suggests that it is time for sociologists to redirect their focus from critiques of policy makers' unrealistic visions for information and communication technologies (ICTs) to the more generic issues that consistently mobilise resistance to ICTs within schools and education systems. There is an extraordinary difference between young people's experiences of ICTs at home and at school. The article explores the nature of ICTs, which are fundamentally antipathetic to the culture of the school, and draws on theories of institutional formation and structuration to explain the subliminal processes of institutional resistance that have so far been effective in emasculating their disruptive power. Illustrations of this process in practice are drawn from recent research in schools in the United Kingdom. The article then draws on three bodies of theory that suggest that ICTs fundamentally change human ontology, and suggests that it is time to stop trying to introduce them into schools as superficial additions to the current system. The article ends with a challenge to sociologists to play a leadership role in scenario building to assist policy makers in the transformation of education systems.