Teacher positioning in educational ICT policies: implications for digital teacher identity development in under-resourced contexts

This study explores how ICT policies assign positions and digital teacher identities to educators in under-resourced contexts. It examines implications of such positioning on the training of technology − using language teachers in Rwanda by using positioning theory to analyse positions and identities assigned to teachers in 10 ICT policy and teacher education programme documents. Findings show that ICT policies use the under-resourced nature of their context to justify compulsory, deficient or aspirational digital teacher identities assigned to teachers through a range of ICT storylines in which teachers are given self-contradictory positions. Overall, the study clarifies how ICT policies shape the development of digital teacher identities through positioning, and by appealing to teachers’ imagined selves and needed contribution to national socio-economic ambitions. The study exemplifies the operationalisation of positioning theory and the positioning triangle in educational policy analysis. Its findings will appeal especially to policymakers, teacher educators and researchers with an interest in educational technology or positioning theory.