Luhmann-Ant: shining a light on student device policy: an examination of Australia's national secondary school computer fund

That the outcomes of policy initiatives often diverge from initial policy intentions is widely known. In the realm of educational Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy, the extent to which policy agendas are realised is somewhat obfuscated the complex, and often politicised, educational environment. The ‘undefined something’ that causes policy misalignment has proven to be elusive. This thesis outlines the journey taken to develop, execute upon and refine a framework and methodological approach to examining where, when, how, and why a large educational ICT policy – the Australian Digital Revolution (DER) / National Secondary Student Computer Fund (NSSCF) – saw mutation (realignment / misalignment) of its policy agenda. My approach was to blend the Actor Network Theory (ANT) for examining the macroscopic level of the policy environment (the structural relationships that made up the policy environment), with Luhmann’s Model of Autopoiesis for examining the microscopic level (the vectors between the actors which carry policy intent). Application of this new framework to the DER / NSSCF revealed several structures within the language of policy transmission that demonstratively gave rise to realignment, and thus mutation, of the original policy agenda. Furthermore, I identify how such policy realignment remains hidden from policymakers.