Digital Citizenship, Digital Divide, and Educational Equity in India

• In Event: Reimagining Education in Complex Contexts: Curriculum, Community, and Teacher Capacity

Proposal

The vision of Digital India initiative is to advance technological infrastructure, however it has inadvertently deepened existing social divides across caste, gender, class, language, religion, and geography (Asrani, 2022; Roy & Mishra, 2022; Tewathia et al., 2023). This digital divide not only limits access to devices and connectivity but also shapes an individual’s opportunities to become digitally literate and civically engaged citizen—one who can critically navigate disinformation, surveillance, and algorithmic governance (Frau-Meigs et al., 2017; Heath, 2018; Williamson & Eynon, 2020; Zuboff, 2019).
While the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 emphasizes a digital transformation in classrooms, access remains uneven especially for marginalized communities, reinforcing social hierarchies and persistent barriers to civic participation (Kamath, 2018; Laskar, 2023) For instance, only 4% of students from Scheduled Castes and Tribes have access to computers and the internet (ASER, 2020). Beyond access, the second level of digital divide within P-12 classrooms—engaging in participatory models of digital literacy—further reproduces inequities in who gets to learn what skills and what that entails for their future capacity to use digital tools as engaged citizens (Gorski, 2009; van Deursen & van Dijk, 2018; Tewathia et al., 2023).
This research examines how structural inequalities shape the educational experiences of Dalit, tribal, and religious minority students in India’s P-12 system. Drawing on critical and social justice frameworks for digital citizenship education (Choi, 2016; James et al. 2019), the study explores how marginalized learners navigate democratic participation through digital technologies. To investigate these dynamics, this research utilizes a multi-method approach. The first method involves critical policy analysis of national policy documents such as NEP 2020 and Digital India frameworks, examining how digital inclusion and citizenship are conceptualized. The second method and secondary data analysis analyzes publicly available datasets (ASER, OECD) to identify patterns in digital access and literacy across social groups.

The research question this study asks is:
How do structural inequalities shape the digital citizenship experiences of marginalized students in India’s P-12 education system, and what implications does this have for inclusive educational policy?

This study will offer a critical analysis of how digital citizenship is conceptualized and operationalized within education policy, particularly in relation to marginalized student populations in India. The findings aim to contribute to the conference theme by rethinking peace not merely as absence of conflict, but as presence of just-practices in access and digital citizenship in postcolonial contexts and raise new questions about what inclusive, equitable, and peaceful education might look like in the digitally mediated societies.

Author

• Pallavi Chhabra, Washington University in St Louis