Educational poverty, digital and cultural divide: Some reflections from a case study

Abstract

The pandemic has highlighted and accentuated some potential risks and critical issues already present in several educational contexts: the widening of educational poverty, the increase in the digital and cultural divide and the expansion of learning loss and of the implicit and explicit early school leaving. In this regard, the case study developed in a period just prior to the pandemic, on the one hand, has highlighted some critical issues of the teaching–learning relationship, while, on the other hand, it has deepened the strengths concerning the teaching–learning relationship in order to improve learning to learn and learning to teach for students and teachers in contemporary complexity. The results show that facing the current complexity means understanding the cultural aspects that guide today’s ways of learning and teaching based on technologies. The relevance of these aspects concerning meanings and practices of teaching and learning is understandable, taking into account the rapid and profound changes in the current world in which we live. In summary, the results of this educational research on the analysed teaching and learning practices can be useful both to treasure today’s lessons learned and to copy the unexpected changes that each crisis proposes like the current one.