Competenze d'uso e fruizione consapevole. Aspetti intangibili del digital divide

The Covid-19 emergency has imposed a thunderstorm disruption of normal teaching and learning activities, inside the Italian Schools. In this situation the Italian School system responded promptly. The new media technologies have allowed, with varied outcomes, to safeguard the educational and relational continuity between educational institutions and students at home. However, alongside this positive signal, it is not possible to hide how the emergency brought out current and potential critical issues that, in this paper, are detectable in reference to the question of digital divide. The paper intends to present a reflection on this question, briefly reconstructing its dynamics in the Covid-19 emergency. After this, we identify specific problems related not to the material aspects that define it usually (availability of equipment and network coverage) but to the intangible aspects, on which the pedagogy is forced to ask itself to indicate paths aimed at reducing design dysfunctions and inequalities of opportunity (on personal and social level) and that are running in parallel direction when the digital divide is reinforced.