What platforms do to purpose: learning management systems and the foreclosure of Biesta’s educational risk

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Ethics and Education

Publication Date

7-7-2026

Abstract

The widespread adoption of learning management systems (LMS) in higher education is typically framed as a question of functionality. This paper argues that it is more fundamentally an ethical question. Drawing on Gert Biesta’s account of subjectification as the distinguishing purpose of education, we examine how LMS platforms mediate the conditions under which that purpose can be enacted. Subjectification, on Biesta’s account, is an ethical commitment that concerns human freedom and the responsibility of educational institutions toward the students in their care. To understand this, we analyse mediation across the dimensions of temporality, encounter, and visibility, finding that the platforms examined consistently foreclose the conditions subjectification requires to thrive. This architecturally enacted foreclosure of educational purpose raises questions about the ethical responsibilities of institutions that adopt infrastructure configured against their deepest educational commitments, and about what students are owed in the conditions under which their education is conducted.

ISSN

1744-9642

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Disciplines

Education

Keywords

Biesta, educational purpose, institutional responsibility, learning management systems, Subjectification

Scopus ID

105044151434

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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