Thematic Working Group 3 - Inclusion of Excluded Populations : Access and Learning Optimization via IT in the Post-Pandemic Era

Ntebutse, Jean Gabin and Passey, Don and Cochrane, Janet and Collin, Simon and Dai, Yiling and Ganayem, Asmaa and Langran, Elizabeth and Mulla, Sadaqat and Ogata, Hiroaki and Rodrigo, Maria Mercedes Tan and Saito, Toshinori and Shonfeld, Miri (2023) Thematic Working Group 3 - Inclusion of Excluded Populations : Access and Learning Optimization via IT in the Post-Pandemic Era. In: Moving forward to new educational realities in the digital era : Report of EDUsummIT 2023. EDUSummIT 2022-23, pp. 20-25.

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Abstract

Thematic Working Group (TWG) 3’s theme is “Inclusion of excluded populations: access and learning optimization via IT in the post-pandemic era”. A focal concern is established by the presence of the first word – ‘inclusion’ – and how this relates to ‘excluded populations’. Much of the research in this field has focused on inclusion for individuals; however, the evidence shows that educational exclusion has multiple dimensions (Passey, 2014). To accommodate this within the current focus, therefore, identifying key dimensions of ‘excluded populations’ will be a key concern of this document. ‘Access’ will be considered beyond physical technology access, involving aspects of accessibility, agency and empowerment. These aspects relate to a definition of access that concerns the needs for individuals to develop and have digital capabilities and abilities to select applications appropriate to purpose, as discussed, for example, by Helsper (2021) and Passey et al. (2018). Taking this wider concern for access, ‘learning optimization’ will be explored as a term that highlights the need to focus on technological access and provision enabling successful outcomes. Given the fact that the intention of the work of TWG3 is to explore findings in the ‘post-pandemic’ context, communication technologies as well as just information technology, ‘IT’, are clearly important and need to be considered. Additionally, exclusion factors to be addressed need to be clearly identified so that inclusion can be accommodated and ensured in the context of specific excluded populations. However, inclusion should not be implemented as an imposition in the context of digital technologies, as some populations do not wish to use digital technologies (Wetmore, 2007), and in this respect the issue of the need to acknowledge diversity is important.