International Organisations’ Socio-technical Imaginaries, Practices, and Governance

Following COVID and the rise of AI, UNESCO, the OECD, and the World Bank have envisioned distinct sociotechnical imaginaries for the digital transformation of education with contested policy agendas for digital education infrastructures and ecosystems. Comparative and international education scholars have examined how educational multilateralism has not only responded to but also contributed to the restructuring of the world order, focusing on the influence of Western power on international comparative indicator projects, leading to the rise of a rationalistic bureaucracy in global education governance. This thesis explores how COVID, as a key crisis moment, narrowed the visions of the future of UNESCO, the OECD, and the World Bank to one dominant global imaginary of digital transformation of education. This inquiry is proceeded by examining what visions of the future of education these organisations promoted from their establishment to COVID, how their visions changed after COVID, and why, drawing on the sociotechnical imaginaries, practices, and governance framework and the realist-constructivist approach to combining narrative and relational network analysis.