The Educational Technology Divide in Glocalisation: A Perspective for Interpreting Early Childhood Teachers’ Practices of ICT Implementation

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: With individuals’ increased access to information and communication technologies (ICT) in many places around the world, the definition of the digital divide has become more complicated than referring to differences in accessing technologies. As early childhood education (ECE) may impact children’s life-long learning and development, digital divides may cause differences in how individual children experience technology-related learning across settings and are therefore important for investigation. This qualitative study explores teachers’ practices of implementation of ICT in three kindergartens in China. Individual interviews and classroom observations were adopted to collect data. In light of concepts of the educational technology divide and glocalisation, this study locates participants’ ICT implementation practices in the local and global literature for an in-depth analysis. The study found that the educational technology divide does exist in teachers’ practices of ICT implementation, which may result in children’s different learning experiences. Additionally, this study found a hybrid of Chinese educational tradition and newly advocated educational ideas in participants’ practices of ICT implementation. Practice or Policy: The implications of the study are discussed to help accelerate the curriculum reforms in China’s ECE context in this digital era.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Xuan was 27-year-old with four years of teaching experience and from River Kindergarten.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Guangdong Provincial Education Science Program (grant number 2022GXJK421) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant number 2022M720470).