This presentation aims to explore how interventions by non-state actors are received, adopted, and ultimately enacted in public schools. Specifically, the paper presents an empirical study focused on the perceptions of school actors in public schools in Portugal regarding a digital education program promoted by a private foundation. According to previous literature, there has been a growing emphasis on the involvement of private political actors, such as philanthropists, think tanks, and edu-businesses, in education governance worldwide and in Portugal (Lubienski et al., 2022; Viseu & Carvalho, 2021). These actors have been active in using new strategies, including networking and knowledge brokerage to influence education policies (Avelar, 2021; Fontdevila et al., 2019; Viseu, 2022). However, the study of the actions and effects of private political actors within schools continues to be an underexplored field.

To address this gap, this study use “policy enactment” (Ball et al., 2012) as a starting point to capture the different positions of school actors in “doing school” (Maguire et al., 2015). With this theoretical approach, we seek to highlight the non-deterministic nature of interventions by private political actors in public schools, focusing on the different translations, interpretations, and recontextualizations by school actors.

To this end, the study focuses on the enactment by public Portuguese public schools to DigitALL program from the Vodafone Portugal Foundation. This program started in 2020 and so far evolved 7,000 students and 1,300 teachers. After applying for the program, the selected schools benefit from a comprehensive package that includes a digital platform, digital curriculum, student kits containing electronic circuits and motherboards, in-person teacher training, and weekly 50-minute classes guided by trained monitors. DigitALL program design confirms the argument of Spreen and Kamat (2018), in which non-state actors “are not only beginning to control curriculum content and testing in countries, they also make decisions about who teaches and under what conditions” (p. 111).  The government, as a privileged ally of the new philanthropy, endorsed the institutional partnership established with the Vodafone Portugal Foundation, as the DigitALL program aims to develop digital and social skills; provides teacher training and “quality scientific and pedagogical digital educational resources” (Director of Directorate-General for Education available at Fundação Vodafone Portugal, 2022b).

In this scenario, we aim to contribute to discuss the interventions made by non-state actors in public schools as signs of privatization (Ball, 2007; Quilabert & Moschetti, 2022). Furthermore, we seek to identify how these initiatives align with an educational reform agenda that emphasizes performance policies, assessments, platformization and public-private partnerships (Verger et al., 2022; Williamson, 2019). 

The study follows a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive approach to understand the representations of individuals involved in the interpretation, translation and recontextualization of DigitALL in participating schools. To this end, data collection involved documentary scrutiny, and interviews. Among the 12 school clusters participating in the DigitALL program between 2022-2023, 9 agreed to collaborate with the research. The school clusters selected the interviewees who would best contribute to our research objectives. Consequently, each interview session had the participation of different actors, including the school principal or vice-principal, the program coordinator or ICT teacher and other teachers directly involved in the program, totaling 15 interviewees. The interviews focused on the reasons for enrolling the program and the initial expectations that justify adherence to the DigitALL program and the perceived effects resulting from the program intervention (translation and recontextualization). The semi-structured interviews followed this script in a flexible and informal way, allowing interviewees to address issues they considered most relevant or introduce new topics. With the consent of the participants, the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and sent to the interviewees for verification. The names of interviewees and school groups were kept confidential. We also conducted an interview with the manager of the Portugal Vodafone Foundation. This interview aimed to explore various aspects of the program, including its structure, operationalization, relationships with schools and other partners, expected results and future perspectives, helping to understand the documents we gathered in the previous phase. The documentary analysis centered on primary sources involved the ‘Action Plan for School Digital Development’ and the ‘Educational Project’ of the 9 participating school clusters and the main reports, websites, and social media of the program in Portugal and its equivalents in Europe. We also analyzed the ‘Curriculum programs’ planned for the 6 years of the DigitALL program. Data analysis was carried out using different approaches. Initially, we examined data relating to the characteristics of schools and the institution’s infrastructure. Subsequently, we systematically organized the data according to the research objectives. This method allowed us to gain a comprehensive understanding of relevant information related to program enactment in schools. Simultaneously, we carried out a sequential analysis of the interviews, preserving the school contexts and seeking to identify unique ways of appropriating and reinterpreting the program within and in relation to school environments.

The ongoing study indicates that there are comprehensive aspects that explain the processes of reception (and receptivity) of DigitALL in schools, as well as the processes of translation and interpretation of the program in its most operational dimensions. However, the data also showed that there are different translation and interpretation processes, especially regarding schools’ representations of the meaning of interventions by non-state actors in school life and management. The analysis revealed that schools adhered to the DigitALL program to improve the provision of public education, considering local needs and resources, and aligning teaching with the digital era. Thus, most interviewees view positively the involvement of non-state actors (including their focus on performance, sustainability, and outsourcing) in education. However, although the program is seen as a way of guaranteeing the provision of public education, the interviewees presented different conceptualizations (institutional elaborations) about the role of philanthropic intervention in their schools. For some, these interventions seem to be understood mainly as a way for the school to acquire more human and material resources; for others, implementing the program at school seems to be perceived more in terms of the potential to improve their competitive position in their territory. The study of the DigitALL program in Portugal reveals both the promise and complexity of incorporating philanthropic digital education initiatives into public schools. Although the program is viewed positively, its uniform design encounters diverse local interpretations and enactments. To date, this research highlights the importance of understanding the intricate dynamics of policy enactment in education, particularly as it relates to the role of private actors in the public domain.

Avelar, M. (2021). Disrupting education policy: How new philanthropy works to change education. Peter Lang. Ball, S. (2007). Education plc: Understanding private sector participation in public sector education. Routledge. Ball, S., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2012). How schools do policy: Policy enactments in secondary schools. Routledge. Fontdevila, C., Verger, A., & Avelar, M. (2019). The business of policy: A review of the corporate sector’s emerging strategies in the promotion of education reform. Critical Studies in Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2019.1573749 Lubienski, C., Yemini, M., Maxwell, C., & Steiner-Khamsi, G. (Orgs.). (2022). The rise of external actors in education: Shifting boundaries globally and locally. Policy Press. Maguire, M., Braun, A., & Ball, S. (2015). ‘Where you stand depends on where you sit’: The social construction of policy enactments in the (English) secondary school. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(4), 485–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2014.977022 Quilabert, E., & Moschetti, M. C. (2022). ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine)’: School-level enactment of an educational innovation policy in Barcelona. European Educational Research Journal, 147490412211214. https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041221121477 Spreen, C. A., & Kamat, S. (2018). From billionaires to the bottom billion: Who’s making education policy for the poor in emerging economies? Em A. Draxler & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Orgs.), The state, business and education: Public-private partnerships revisited. Edward Elgar Publishing. Verger, A., Maroy, C., & Grek, S. (2022). World yearbook of education 2021 accountability and datafication in the governance of education (First edition). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Viseu, S. (2022). New philanthropy and policy networks in global education governance: The case of OECD’s netFWD. International Journal of Educational Research, 114, 102001. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2022.102001 Viseu, S., & Carvalho, L. M. (2021). Policy Networks, Philanthropy, and Education Governance in Portugal: The Raise of Intermediary Actors. Foro de Educación, 19(1), 81–104. Williamson, B. (2019). Policy networks, performance metrics and platform markets: Charting the expanding data infrastructure of higher education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(6), 2794–2809. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12849