Down the rabbit hole
The critical academic reflective paper for LRNT 526 has been an incredible journey for me. When our group, the Coasters, first landed on the digital divide as the issue for our group assignment, I had no idea the magnitude of learning that my choice of Coursera as a commercial platform would generate. I’m generally socially minded and have critical concerns about the privatisation of institutions that are traditionally public resources and services. I expected that I might find some concerning practices at Coursera, but did not expect to encounter the concepts and ideologies that I confronted. The sheer amount of literature and opportunities for scholarly work are incredible at the intersection of privatisation and education.
At the conceptual level of this inquiry, I was introduced to the paradigm of neoliberalism, a term I had heard used occasionally but had never taken the time to truly understand. Anne-Marie was kind enough to share a 2011 paper by Raewyn Connell that summarised neoliberalism’s goals and paradigms in the context of education. It provided a helpful introduction to the concepts of neoliberalism that appeared in other papers, and I gained insight into the broader goals of a neoliberal worldview. This subject alone is a massive topic of social, economic, political, philosophical and historical scholarship, and in the context of this inquiry, it can be self-contradicting. Often the literature pointed to the substantial role of neoliberalism in creating and deeping the digital divide, and yet I encountered a 2008 paper where Stepheson et al. posit an interesting theory that the digital divide is itself a trope created by neoliberal societies to legitimise technocratic futures where universal services are reduced to universal access problems, thereby ignoring the historical inequities created through neoliberal policies and practices.
At the more practical level, I was introduced to the concept of rentiership, that is, the charging of rent for access to and use of a resource, in this case, through a digital intermediary like Coursera. Here I encountered the works of Janja Komljenovic, Kean Birch, and Ben Williamson on the mechanisms through which an open resource like knowledge undergoes an intentional process where it is encapsulated, protected, assetised, valued, controlled, and licensed to generate revenue. Again, this is a massive body of work spanning multiple disciplines with substantial consequences for the future of education. As a subset of this theme, I also investigated the challenges of datafication and platformisation of education. As an implementation of neoliberal philosophies, the practices of rentiership, platformisation, and datafication are reshaping the educational landscape where ed tech companies like Coursera are functioning as political, social, and economic actors.
While my critical inquiry confirmed that Coursera engages in problematic practices and espouses a neoliberal ideology, it is crucial to recognise that it is both a Public Benefit Corporation and a certified B-Corp, and has demonstrated substantial outcomes from millions of learners, supported low- and middle-income countries through free licensing, and contributed to ongoing environmental sustainability goals. The question remains: What effect will Coursera and other commercial ed tech companies have on the future of education, particularly for those negatively affected by the digital divide?
Finally, as with many complex socioeconomic issues, my synopsis of Coursera and the digital divide is that “it’s complicated”. There are no easy answers; the problems are massive, interaffecting, interrelated, and in some cases spanning decades and beyond. In undertaking this inquiry, I was reminded of a perspective I once heard: there are no solutions to complex adaptive problems, only an endless series of dynamic responses as the challenges and responses are co-evolving. Suffice it to say, despite a significant amount of reading, I have only scratched the surface of these topics, and I expect I will gravitate back to learning more about them while concurrently being affected by them throughout my career.
I’m sure I will fall down this rabbit hole again!
References
B Lab (2022). Coursera, Inc. [report]. https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/company/coursera/
Connell, R.W. (2011). MyUniversity: Notes on neoliberalism and knowledge for the consideration of the Academic Board. http://www.raewynconnell.net/2012/05/market-university-and-knowledge.html
Coursera (2024). Coursera Impact report: Transforming lives through learning. https://investor.coursera.com/governance/impact/default.aspx
Stevenson, S. (2009). Digital divide: A discursive move away from the real inequities. The Information Society, 25(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972240802587539
Postscript
Unfortunately, the link to Raewyn Connell’s paper is broken on her website. I’ve reached out to her to let her know, and she responded that she’s going to try to get it fixed, if possible. That said, if you’re interested in reading the article, you’re welcome to contact me for a copy.
Chris, what a compelling and layered reflection, thank you for taking us along on this journey down the rabbit hole. I appreciated how honestly you traced your movement from a general sense of concern about privatization to a much deeper interrogation of the systemic ideologies that shape platforms like Coursera. Your engagement with neoliberalism, especially through Connell’s work, resonated with my own learning curve around platform logics. Like you, I found the term “neoliberalism” to be more than a buzzword—it’s a lens that reframes everything from access and equity to the commodification of education.
Your exploration of rentiership was particularly eye-opening. The way you described knowledge being “encapsulated, protected, assetised” made me think about how commercial platforms turn learners into data points and knowledge into products. It reminded me of Bucher’s (2018) notion of algorithmic agency, not just technical systems, but political actors with real consequences. When you brought in Komljenovic and Birch, it really highlighted how education technologies are not neutral tools but part of larger economic and ideological projects.
I also appreciated your fairness in acknowledging Coursera’s complex identity (as a B-Corp and Public Benefit Corporation) which resists easy villainization. This nuance is critical. It challenges us to consider not just what these platforms do, but how and why, and whether positive outcomes for some learners might still be entangled in broader systems of exclusion.
Your closing thought (that complex problems invite ongoing responses rather than tidy solutions) is so important. It reflects a humility that’s often missing in edtech discourse. Like you, I feel like we’re just scratching the surface, and yet the questions we ask now will shape how we respond, design, and advocate in the future.
Thanks again for sharing this, it’s not just thoughtful work, but important work.