Technologies of Inclusion or Exclusion: A Critical Look at Digital Education

This chapter offers a critical exploration of digital education, examining its promises, limitations, and the underlying assumptions that shape its development and use in education. While digital technologies have become deeply embedded in education globally and are often promoted as tools for expanding access and fostering innovation, this chapter questions the widespread belief that going digital automatically leads to educational equity. This chapter demonstrates how digital education is embedded in complex social, cultural, political, and economic contexts that may widen, rather than narrow, existing gaps in equity. The chapter first unpacks the concept of the digital divide across multiple dimensions—not only in terms of access to devices and connectivity, but also differences in digital skills, patterns of use, and educational outcomes. It further highlights how power operates in the design, governance, and pedagogy of digital education, influencing which knowledge is valued and who is able to participate fully. Rather than viewing digital education as a neutral or universally progressive force, the chapter situates it within larger structures of privilege and exclusion. Recognising that digital transformation is both inevitable and uneven, the chapter calls for more equitable, inclusive, and context-sensitive approaches to technology in education, with leadership playing a central role in guiding these efforts. It concludes by exploring future directions, including low-tech, blended, and community-rooted models, as vital to reimagining educational justice and ongoing digitization for a post-digital era.