Digital Gaps in School? Exploring the Digital Native Debate

Abstract

The students of today have mostly grown up surrounded by numerous digital technologies, like cell-phones, computers and the internet; therefore they are called digital natives by some scholars. These information and communication technologies are indispensable parts of their lives. The digital gaps which are caused by the (different) use of digital technologies are socially relevant primarily in school, as they influence the inequalities in education. In our article, we present the possible approaches of digital inequalities in school, the gap between teachers and students and the differences among students. We introduce the concepts and theories about the digital natives then sum up the main criticism about this thesis. Recent empirical studies and their results are presented to argue in favour of the heterogeneity of the digital native’s generation.

Keywords

• digital gap
• digital inequalities
• digital natives
• net generation
• ICT use patterns