« Pauvreté éducative numérique ». Fracture numérique, les mineurs et l’école italienne

Based on the experience of distance learning in Italian schools during the Covid-19 pandemic, the concept of “digital educational poverty”, which is mentioned in the text, not only means a loss of social but also of cultural and expressive skills. The analysis of the Italian experience highlights the need to rethink the digital divide not only in terms of access to technological devices and connection networks, but also in terms of the lack of a conscious use of digital innovation and creativity, within a participatory framework and from the perspective of responsible citizenship. In this respect, data collected from Italian middle school students in early 2021 are reported in a survey carried out by the NGO Save the Children. To support the validity of the new concept of digital educational poverty, the text illustrates how, during the research, the tool called “AbCD - Basic Self-Assessment of Digital Competence” was developed, based on two approaches. The first approach refers to the digital rights (European Digital Competence Framework 2.1) while the second is focused on the dynamism and transdisciplinarity of skills (New Literacy). This analysis should be seen as a reflection on the two positions taken by the Italian schools with respect to the digital technology in the pandemic. On the one hand, there is a “luddite- conservative” perspective, which has brought together subjects from very different positions. On the other hand, there is the “innovative-democratic” school, which inspires the actions of professional educators who are engaged in the digital education of students, experimenting with new educational environments and thus keeping alive a universalistic concept of education. These teachers are well aware that the historic tension between democratic and conservative schools also extends to today’s digital world. Indeed, relating to the Web does not mean giving in to a fad or a temporary necessity but fully realizing that school media is an ethical dimension and a space for the construction of citizenship.