The Digital Divide: Insights into an Uneven Playing Field

While COVID-19 has created uncertainty, confusion, and complexity amongst the whole of society, schools initially had to react rapidly to lockdowns and restrictions by adapting to a new reality of digital learning. At the vanguard of the change have been school principals who have led the change to adopt new technologies, ways of teaching and learning, and ways of relating to each other. The existing trends towards adopting new technology have accelerated as schools quickly adapted to online or remote learning. Unfortunately, the move to the digital world has been uneven. The gap between well-resourced and more affluent school communities and the poorer school communities has grown. The fear is that the richer schools will move more quickly to adopt even more new technologies, leaving the poorer school communities in their wake. This chapter will draw on emerging research, reports, and our own findings from interviews of how school principals in Australia have responded to adopting new digital technology and ways of learning as the new normal. We will also explore the challenge for school principals in poorly resourced and socially challenged schools for closing the gap in the digital divide.