Repackaging Authority: Artificial Intelligence, Automated Governance and Education Trade Shows

Overview & Synopsis

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to be an important part of education governance. It is already being built into everything from business intelligence platforms to real-time online testing. In this paper, we aim to understand how AI becomes, and forms, a legitimate part of authority in contemporary education governance in what we call the automated education governance assemblage, that incorporates technology companies and AI-supported products used in education. We focus on EduTech Australia -- an education technology trade show in Sydney -- as a way to look at: (1) how the different aspects of automated governance are connected at EduTech, including the relations between different participants, companies and products; and (2) how the automated governance assemblage works to legitimise and constitute EduTech as a policy space and site of new authorities in education governance.