EdTech startups are being touted as steady purveyors of innovations designed to revolutionize the education system (e.g. European Schoolnet 2023; Jacobs Foundation; European EdTech Alliance 2024). In our contribution, we aim to explore the discourse produced by EdTech startups themselves and related actors, such as accelerators and investors, and it's possible implications for the development of educational technologies. These actors in the EdTech space seem to thrive on the notion that “education is broken”, and an “oncoming educational apocalypse” (Weller 2022, 83−84) by creating a cornucopia of digital solutions, and with it, ways to translate didactic and pedagogical concepts (e.g., Schiefner-Rohs, Hofhues & Breiter 2023; Jarke & Macgilchrist 2021) or managerial needs around school environments (Hartong & Breiter 2021) into algorithmic systems. Over the past years, there has been a growing body of international research from various perspectives, such as in-depth analyses of specific products. Beyond the field of education, startups have been investigated, for instance, in terms of their organizational culture and gender  (Pöllänen 2021); their global startup culture and its domestication (Koskinen 2021); the sociality of networking of young tech-entrepreneurs (Pfeilstetter 2017); the rise of startup entrepreneurship as a cultural phenomenon (Hyrkäs 2016); the exploitative tendencies of startup economy (Hill 2017); or as affordance networks, symbolic form and cultural practice (Werning 2019). 

Most of the existing international studies related to the EdTech startup space focus on individual stakeholder groups, like investors (Venture Capital, business angels, e.g. Ball 2019), accelerators (e.g. Ester 2017; Ramiel 2021; Nivanaho et al. 2023), and “Big EdTech” (e.g. Williamson 2022; Komljenovic et al. 2023). 

EdTech startups themselves and their realities present an intriguing object of sociological education research, since startups are the actors who in practice develop educational technology, seek investment possibilities, and cater to and/or deploy a specific vision of education. Their discourses and practical working conditions are the realties in which EdTech products emerge – they are an important executive agency, made of individuals able to criticize practical contradictions and act accordingly (as considered in pragmatic sociology, see e.g. Barthe et al. 2013, 186). 

To this end, we draw on empirical material from our work at a European EdTech conference, analyzing presentations from EdTech startups, investors and policy makers given at a public conference in central Europe and shedding light on the many intricate practices EdTech startups adopt to persist within the “ecosystem” (itself a powerful biological life/agent metaphor, Weller 2022, 9; see e.g. Founders Foundation 2024). In our analysis, we show how the seemingly underlying motive of a broken education, the conspicuous references to the otherworldly and heroic individuals overcoming hardship isolates the real-life actor ‘startup’ from its complex interrelationships with the actual world. 

We will present results from our field study at a European EdTech startup conference held in 2022. The conference catered specifically to EdTech entrepreneurs, investors, and policy makers. Our data consists of fieldnotes made 1) as participants of the summit, 2) specifically during 5 selected presentations of approx. 1 hour each given by announced speakers, 3) on-site pictures, 4) related press releases, and 5) corresponding social media content from the platform LinkedIn. We approached the whole corpus with a discourse analysis based on the sociology of knowledge approach, the aim of which is to work out patterns of interpretation in the material (Keller 2005). By several loops of coding, focusing on meaning making within the presentations and discussions we observed, some discourse patterns and metaphors of a mythological, tale-like storytelling (see e.g., Jarke & Macgilchrist 2021; Macgilchrist 2019) jumped out at us. Hence, we decided to introduce the characteristics of the European folk tale (Lüthi 1986) as a productive lens to capture these discursive particularities. Especially the European corpus and convincing methodology of this study, the depth of the overarching phenomena described, and its prominence in European narratology, made us choose Max Lüthi’s work over other theories such as Joseph Campbell’s hero journey (which suffers from a selection bias) or Vladimir Propp´s morphology of fairytales (which concentrates on plot structure and characters). According to Lüthi’s framework, a folktale is “a world-encompassing adventure story told in a swift, sublimating style. With unrealistic ease, it isolates its figures and knits them together” and refuses “to explain its operative interrelationships in dogmatic terms.” (Lüthi 1986, 82). The folktale also envisions a world in contrast to “the uncertain, confusing, unclear, and threatening world of reality” giving us “clear lines and solid unwavering figures […] in purposeful motion” (Lüthi 1986, 85−86). Interestingly, folktale characters are not irritated by the encounter of an otherworldly being or an “alien dimension” – unrealistic beings and propositions and reality coalesce. It is in this sense that Lüthi identifies a “one-dimensionality” of the folktale (ibid., 10).

Drawing on Lüthi, we observed the construction of a contemporary folktale by EdTech startups, investors, and policy makers through elements of 1) an underlying one-dimensionality 2), otherworldly metaphors, and 3) heroic tales of entrepreneurship. Firstly, we noted a one-dimensionality in how actors in the EdTech space speak about techno-solved futures of education and revoking a problem-ridden education system – mostly in absence of educational practitioners, researchers, let alone students or parents. Most of the speakers seem isolated from a tangible reality of and interrelationships with these groups, which does not appear to create any perplexity for the involved actors. Even for so-called impact investors, the operationalisation of the actual impact of the EdTech they fund remains intangible, uncertain, and abstract. The isolated nature of discourses produced at EdTech startup conferences creates a detachment from educational realities by establishing one-dimensional narratives. Second, the interwoven symbolism and materiality of the mystical metaphors the actors use (e.g., a mechanical rodeo unicorn) − talking of ‘unicorns’ (i.e., a startup evaluated at 1 B$ or more), ‘centaurs’ (evaluation of 100 M$), or advising ‘business angels’ etc. seem normalised in their discourses and interactions. These otherworldly characters, denominating real life (human) evaluation and businesses, are a sign of the latent (probably intended) uncertainty of entrepreneurship. Third, the extraordinary nature of a selected founders’ own entrepreneurial journey reminds us of a heroic tale (Blank & Dorf 2020, xxi), following a certain scheme of hard work at a very young age (indicating an innate drive), making the right choices, engaging with the right people, and having a large amount of luck. The story establishes at once un/certainty, bypassing startups’ own working realities and interrelationships. These narratives collide with educational settings in schools, universities, and other educational institutions.

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