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23 SES 05 A: Teachers navigating policies and technology
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23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper GenAI, Curriculum Labour And Teachers’ Time Poverty 1: Queensland University of Technology, Australia; 2: Australian Catholic University Presenting Author:Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly promoted across education systems as a response to teachers’ workload pressures, particularly those associated with curriculum planning, lesson preparation and assessment. Policy and system-level claims commonly position GenAI as a technical efficiency solution, assuming that automating or assisting curriculum-related tasks will translate into time savings and reduced work intensity for teachers. This proposal challenges that assumption. The central research question guiding this paper is: How does teachers’ use of generative AI reshape curriculum labour and experiences of time, and with what implications for time poverty in contemporary teaching? Rather than asking whether GenAI “works” as a workload solution, the paper examines how GenAI reorganises where effort is concentrated, how time is experienced, and which forms of curriculum labour remain resistant to acceleration. Conceptually, the paper is grounded in scholarship on teachers’ work, workload and time poverty, which conceptualises time scarcity as a structural condition of contemporary teaching rather than an individual deficit (Creagh et al., 2025; Thompson & Hogan, 2024). Time poverty is understood as produced through intensified accountability regimes, expanding role expectations, administrative layering, and the accumulation of curriculum-related demands. Within this framework, GenAI is analysed as a temporal technology (Wajcman, 2008), not as a neutral tool but as an intervention that redistributes temporal pressures across tasks and actors. The analysis also draws on work on social acceleration (Rosa, 2013) and the politics of time in education (Madsen & Laursen, 2026), which highlights how reforms framed around efficiency reshape teachers’ temporal autonomy and professional judgement. From this perspective, GenAI is situated within broader logics of temporal governance, where technologies promise speed and flexibility while leaving underlying conditions of work largely intact. While the empirical focus of the paper is Australia, the contribution is explicitly international. Many European education systems are similarly characterised by intensified accountability, performance measurement, and policy discourses of efficiency and innovation. GenAI is currently being promoted across European contexts as part of digitalisation agendas, often with limited attention to how benefits and burdens may be unevenly distributed. By analysing GenAI through the lens of curriculum labour and time poverty, this paper offers a framework for understanding why technological “solutions” may reproduce existing inequalities in teachers’ work across national contexts. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The paper draws on data from a national survey of Australian teachers (N = 1,058) conducted in December 2025. The survey captured teachers’ use of GenAI across a range of curriculum-related tasks, including curriculum planning, lesson preparation, assessment design, feedback provision, and professional communication. It also measured perceived quality of GenAI outputs, workload manageability and work intensity. GenAI use was operationalised through task-specific frequency measures, allowing analysis of where GenAI is most and least commonly integrated into teachers’ curriculum work. Perceived output quality was measured using Likert-scale items assessing teachers’ evaluations of GenAI-generated materials across different task domains. Workload manageability and work intensity were measured using established survey items capturing time sufficiency and perceived pressure. Analysis proceeded in three phases, examining task-level patterns of GenAI use and perceived output quality, associations between GenAI use, workload manageability and work intensity, and differences in use across teacher and school characteristics using validated composite indices and adjusted regression models. While the study is quantitative, the analysis is conceptually informed by critical policy sociology and labour process perspectives. Rather than treating survey measures as neutral indicators of efficiency, the paper interprets associations in light of broader structural conditions shaping teachers’ work. This allows the findings to be read not as evidence of technological success or failure, but as indicators of how GenAI interacts with existing temporal pressures and professional constraints. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The findings indicate that GenAI is most commonly used for curriculum planning, lesson preparation, assessment-related tasks and professional communication, and least commonly used for providing student feedback. Perceived output quality broadly aligns with patterns of use, though important mismatches are evident. Frequently used tasks, particularly lesson resource preparation, are associated with lower perceived quality, while less frequently used tasks, such as proofreading and report writing, are rated more highly. Despite these task-level tensions, overall GenAI use is strongly associated with higher perceived output quality and with greater workload manageability and lower reported work intensity. However, these associations are uneven. Female teachers, teachers working in outer regional contexts, and more experienced teachers report higher work intensity alongside lower GenAI use, suggesting that the temporal benefits of GenAI are shaped by existing conditions of work rather than by access to technology alone. The paper concludes that GenAI does not resolve teachers’ time poverty but can partially alleviate its symptoms for some groups by shifting how curriculum labour is performed. GenAI operates as a form of stratified temporal relief, benefiting teachers with greater autonomy, flexibility and supportive conditions, while leaving the structural drivers of time scarcity intact. These findings caution against policy narratives that position GenAI as a universal workload solution. In European and international contexts characterised by similar accountability and efficiency pressures, such claims risk reproducing uneven outcomes unless reforms address the underlying organisation and governance of teachers’ work. References Creagh, S., Thompson, G., Mockler, N., Stacey, M., & Hogan, A. (2025). Workload, work intensification and time poverty for teachers and school leaders: A systematic research synthesis. Educational Review, 77(2), 661-680. Madsen, M., & Laursen, R. (2026). Introduction: Education and the politics of time. In Education and the Politics of Time: Temporal Governance in Teaching and Learning (pp. 1-22). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. Rosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration: A new theory of modernity. Columbia University Press. Thompson, G., & Hogan, A. (2024). Time poverty in teachers' work. In Teaching and Time Poverty (pp. 1-14). Routledge. Wajcman, J. (2008). Life in the fast lane? Towards a sociology of technology and time. The British journal of sociology, 59(1), 59-77. 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper Discourses of Well-being Reshaping Teachers’ Subjectivities in an era of digitalized knowledge 1: University of the Peloponnese, Greece; 2: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Presenting Author:With technology, currently, pervading every aspect of our lives, altering our modes of communication, labour and learning styles, the notion of well-being emerges as a coping tool for the increasingly stressed populations of digitized societies (Castells, 2024). Recontextualised in global agendas like European Union’s (EU) “Compass on Action on Mental Health and Well-being”, and national programmes [“The Children’s plan” (England) or “EPODE” (France)], it targets mostly students and young people in a context of digitalised life (Morselo, 2016). The great variety of discursive themes from mental health and emotional literacy to sustainability and physical health characterizing these programmes highlights well-being’s abstract character of well-being, which allows its instrumentalization by supranational organizations -such as OECD and EU- and national governments. Thus, far from just addressing the sedentary and often mentally strenuous modern lifestyles these initiatives promote a “healthy”, resilient individual, that contributes to economic growth. In this paper, we focus on the notion of physical well-being, exploring its becoming an essential component of and its linking to the wider purposes of education (Spratt, 2017). We investigate how it is often reduced to anti-obesity school initiatives and an alignment device (Bandola-Gill et al, 2021) for the construction of homogenized embodied subjectivities. We argue that, often, well-being discourses re-orientate knowledge and shift the governance of education with various effects on the designing of the new visions for the educational and societal future (Gewirtz & Cribb, 2020).Our research focuses on the study of “EuZein”, an EU partially financed well-being educational programme that was implemented in Greek schools in the previous decade in Physical Education (PE) courses, entailing the assessment of obesity amongst students, the promotion of physical activity and healthy dietary behaviours and the personal development of PE teachers (PETs) on dietary and physical activity subjects. In particular, we investigate how EU’s discourses of well-being -interpreted as an issue of individual responsibility and care (Tinning, 2014) and reduced to body's shape and weight (Leow et al, 2014)- attempted to (re)construct PE field both on the level of somatic knowledge and its governance, and to (re)structure students’ and PETs’ subjectivities. Our theoretical perspective and focus of inquiry are shaped by Foucault's (2004, 2008) notion of governmentality, helping us analyse the intricacy of bio-power relations and their influence on the way individuals through shaping their bodies (re)structure their subjectivities (Wellard & Secker, 2017). Additionally, using Bernstein’s (1999) theory of horizontal and vertical pedagogical discourse and Evans et al’s (2008, 2009) concept of corporeal device we introduce the concepts of horizontal corporeal discourse to describe the generic somatic knowledges originating from discourses such as well-being and of vertical corporeal discourses for somatic knowledges emanating from specialist’s (athletic and bio-mechanic) fields. The concepts of horizontal and vertical corporeal discourses counterpart Foucault’s (2004) notion of governmentality and allows the investigation of state’s and market’s linkage, the well-being's and healthyist discourses' intertwining, and the practices of self-care and anti-obesity bio-pedagogies' interlacing that outline the orientation of the somatic knowledge within PE field and its governance. Focusing on EuZein's regulatory dimensions, within a totally somatically pedagogised society (Kourou, 2024), we demonstrate how curricular discourses of obesity, well-being, and sanitised bodies (Foucault, 2004) become entangled with the neoliberal key technologies of performativity, accountability, and standardisation, and how these configurations affect the Greek PE field. We show that well-being discourses, recontextualized in EuZein’s bio-pedagogies, attempted to (re)orientate the forms of somatic knowledge within the field of Greek PE and the modes of its governance (Landri, 2018), while simultaneously (re)constructing the subjectivities of those participating in it, mainly the PETs and the students.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used We approach “EuZein” as an example through which discourses of well-being are inscribed onto the bodies of participants, examining how pedagogical and somatic discourses may encourage individuals to cultivate utilitarian forms of corporeality and to understand themselves as subjects aligned with dominant EU well being discourses (Rich et al., 2019). Through interviews with participants to EuZein’s we explore the ways in which the particular interpretations of well-being within EuZein appear to operate as regulatory mechanisms, shaping subjects in relation to broader EU social, educational, and economic agendas (McLeod & Wright, 2016). At the same time, through the exploration of the possibilities of initiating well-being programmes such as EuZein in schools we consider the potential for reworking this predominantly neoliberal physical well-being agenda towards more socially informed and empowering orientations of students’ and PETs’ embodied subjectivities (Kourou, 2024). The strategic “dialogue” between the two theories allowed us to construct a biaxial system with somatic knowledge on one axle and the governance of the field of PE on the other. Instead of considering the, admittedly, entwined knowledge and power as two different fields of analysis we conceived them as an open axles’ function with a joint starting point. The axle of PE governance is defined in its starting point by bio-power technologies and to its open end by practices of the self. Vertical somatic discourse defines the beginning of somatic knowledge's axle while horizontal somatic discourses characterize its further end. This governance/knowledge function served as a device for mapping the PE field and describing PETs’ subjectivities according to their positioning in it. This plexus operates as an analytical kay of subject positions, identifying e.g.“docile subjectivities” for individuals who position themselves in the discourse close to the cross-section of vertical corporeal discourse and technologies of bio-power, or “agile subjectivities” for individuals positioned in the quadrant of horizontal discourses and practices of the self (Gillies 2011). Analysing the interviews, we aimed to identify where the participants position themselves in the bio-power/somatic knowledge plexus we developed. By exploring how EuZein’s operation as a bio-pedagogy affected the orientation of somatic knowledge in the PE field and how its bio-power technologies and practices of the self shifted the PE field’s governance, we ventured to highlight the (re)structuring of PETs’ embodied subjectivities. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Our findings demonstrate the demands placed on PETs to embrace bio-practices that change the governing of the PE field and (re)orientate somatic knowledge within it. Furthermore, they display PET's differentiated response to these demands, leading to dispersed positioning on the governance/somatic knowledge plexus. Our research unveils the interweaving of neo-liberal performativity and perfection discourses (Evans et al, 2009) with the well-being and healthyist discourses, creating new subjectivity positionings (Ozga, 2012) and the varied PETs’ handling of these positionings leading to the construction of subjectivities that range from docility and discipline to flexibility and agility. The investigation of PETs’ discourses on EuZein reveals the shifting of PE field’s governance from bio-power technologies of coaching to practices of self-care and the re-orientation of somatic knowledge from vertical corporeal discourse deriving from athletics and ergophysiology to horizontal corporeal discourses of generic physical activity and well-being knowledge. Our charting of PE field, using the bi-axial plexus of governmentality and somatic knowledge, elucidates how well-being discourses and anti-obesity pedagogies result in new PE conceptualisations and contribute to the decentering of PETs’ subjectivities. Bringing to the fore these shifts and reorientations contributes to a more profound exploration of health and wellbeing discourses as components of new education modalities affected increasingly by digitalization. It contributes to getting the insight needed to explore the potentials of well-being discourses to offer a new educational autonomy to individuals and to rechart education in a digital world (Chambers & Sandford, 2019), simultaneously real and narrated (Latour 1991). Our findings can promote the debate about well-being discourses in the contexts of digitized education (Komljenovic et al, 2015) and digitalized corporeal existence (Morselo, 2016), and how they can positively (re)shape PE’s field and the subjects within it, in an era where the digital alters knowledge and modes of acting in education. References Bernstein, B. (1999) Vertical and Horizontal Discourse: an essay, British Journal of Education, 20:2, 157-173 Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: theory, research and critique, Revised edition. (New York: Rowman & Littlefield) Chambers, F., & Sandford, R. (2019). Learning to be human in a digital world: a model of values fluency education for physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 24(9), 925–938 Chapman, A. (2015) Wellbeing and schools: Exploring the normative in K. Wright, & J. McLeod, (eds) Rethinking Youth Wellbeing, 143-160. (Springer) Donzelot, J. (2005) La police des familles (Paris, Minuit) Evans, J., Davies, B., Rich, E. (2009) The body made flesh: embodied learning and the corporeal device. British Journal of Sociology of Education 30:4, 391-406 Foucault, M. (1975) Surveiller et punir : Naissance de la prison (Paris, Gallimard) Foucault, M. (1988) Technologies of the Self in Martin, et al (eds) Technologies of the self. A seminar with Michel Foucault, 16-49 (London, Tavistock) Foucault, M. (2004) Naissance de la Biopolitique : Cours au Collège de France 1978-79 (Paris : Gallimard) Gewirtz, S. & Cribb, A. (2020) What works? Academic integrity and the research-policy relationship. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41:6, 794-806 Komljenovic, J., Birch, K., & Sellar, S. (2025). Mapping rentiership and assetisation in the digitalisation of education. Learning, Media and Technology, 50(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2025.2469559 Kourou, M. (2025) From Docile to Agile Bodies. The Effects of the Policies and Discourses of Well-being and Health in the Field of Physical Education and on the subjectivities of Physical Education Teachers. (PhD thesis, unpublished) Landri, P. (2018). Digital Governance of Education. Technologies, Standards and Europeanization of Education, (London, Bloomsbury) Latour, B. (1991) Nous n'avons jamais été modernes. Essai d'anthologie symmetrique (Paris, LaDecouverte poche) Leow, A.C.S, Macdonald, D., Hay, P. & McCuaig L. (2014) Health-education policy interface: the implementation of the Eat Well Be Active policies in schools Sport, Education and Society 19:8, 991-1013 Morsello, B. (2016) Digitalization of life — How technology redefine the self in the global context EASST Review: 35:4 McLeod, J. & Wright, K. (2016) What does wellbeing do? An approach to defamiliarize keywords in youth studies. Journal of Youth Studies 19:6 776-792 Ozga, J. (2012) Governing knowledge: data, inspection and education policy in Europe. Globalisation, Societies and Education 10:4, 439-455 Tinning, R.I., (2014) The Obesity Crisis and the Field of Kinesiology: A Discursive and Memetic Consideration Quest, 66:1, 27-38 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper Governing Education with EdTech: Instrument Constituencies, Welfare State Logics, and the Role of Teachers University of Bergen, Norway Presenting Author:Digital platforms and tools (EdTech) increasingly mediate how public education is organised, monitored, and delivered. This development expands the role of private actors in traditionally public domains, raising questions about legitimacy, accountability, and professional authority. Within Nordic welfare states—often characterised by high trust, universalism, and public value—these dynamics may unfold differently than in more market‑driven systems. This suggests a need to examine how welfare‑state logics interact with emerging forms of digitalisation. While a growing body of research examines EdTech as innovation or infrastructure, and another body investigates governance and welfare‑state logics, these strands are rarely brought together. This paper therefore tentatively explores how insights from these literatures might be connected to better understand the influence of private EdTech actors on public education governance, and how teacher professionalism may mediate these processes. We draw on New Public Governance (NPG) to discuss how multiactor, networked modes of governance may shift when EdTech is introduced. In addition, we consider the concept of instrument constituencies as a potentially useful lens for analysing how certain digital technologies gain momentum, support, and legitimacy over time. Bringing these perspectives into dialogue may offer a way to examine how governance instruments become stabilised—even across political shifts—and how private actors contribute to their institutionalisation. Norway functions as a strategic case due to its strong professional teaching culture, long‑standing welfare‑state commitments, and historically high level of trust in public institutions. Teachers’ roles as implementers, gatekeepers, and interpreters of policy may provide important insights into how EdTech instruments are enacted in practice. The paper is exploratory in nature and seeks to identify promising conceptual linkages, rather than present a definitive framework. Our aim is to open a space for further theoretical and empirical investigation into how EdTech, welfare‑state logics, and professional practice intersect.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used This is a conceptual and exploratory paper. We employ a structured process of conceptual synthesis and integrative theorising to identify potential connections between three strands of literature: (1) education governance (with an emphasis on NPG); (2) welfare state logics in Nordic contexts; and (3) EdTech studies. Our analytical process involves: 1. Surveying and clarifying key concepts across the literatures, including “instrument constituency”, “EdTech governance” and “professional autonomy” 2. Exploring possible points of alignment between instrument constituency theory and welfare state logics, with attention to how these might jointly illuminate processes of legitimation and institutionalisation in EdTech governance. 3. Considering the role of teachers through the lenses of professionalism, street level bureaucracy, and policy enactment, to suggest how professional norms and practices may shape the influence on, and uptake and use of, digital governance tools. The paper aims to sketch analytical propositions and identify conceptual tensions that may serve as starting points for future empirical work. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The paper is expected to contribute in three tentative ways: 1. Identifying conceptual linkages between NPG, instrument constituencies, and welfare state perspectives that may help to analyse EdTech influence in education governance. 2. Proposing preliminary analytical questions or propositions about how EdTech actors gain legitimacy and stability through their digital products, and how teachers’ professional practices might mediate these developments. 3. Outlining possible directions for further empirical research, including potential data sources and comparative opportunities within different education systems. These outcomes are deliberately exploratory and intended to support ongoing dialogue rather than present a conclusive theoretical framework. References Ball, S.J., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2012). How Schools Do Policy. Routledge. Béland, D., Howlett, M., & Mukherjee, I. (2018). Instrument constituencies and public policy-making. Policy and Society, 37(1), 1-13. Cribb, A., & Gewirtz, S. (2007). Unpacking autonomy and control in education. European Educational Research Journal, 6(3), 203-213. Helgøy, I., & Homme, A. (2007). Towards a new professionalism in school? European educational research journal, 6(3), 232-249. Kerssens, N. & van Dijck, J. (2022). Governed by Edtech? Harvard Educational Review, 92, 284-303. Lipsky, M. (2010). Street-level bureaucracy. Russell sage foundation. Tolo, A. (2023). The formation and development of a Norwegian accountability system. In: Mattei, P, Dumay, X, Mangez, E. & Behrend, J. OUP Handbook of Education and Globalization. Oxford University Press. 594-614. Osborne, S. P. (Ed.). (2010). The new public governance? Routledge. Simons, A., & Voß, J. P. (2018). The concept of instrument constituencies. Policy and Society, 37(1), 14-35. Tolo, A. (2023). The formation and development of a Norwegian accountability system. In: Mattei, P, Dumay, X, Mangez, E. & Behrend, J. OUP Handbook of Education and Globalization. Oxford University Press. 594-614. | ||