Abstract:

Introduction:
Digital educational poverty, conceptualised by CREMIT in 2021, was defined from DigComp2.1 and a reformulation of the 4 dimensions consistent with those used to measure educational poverty: learning to understand, to be, living together, living an autonomous and active life. The concept of digital educational poverty holds together the 3 levels of the digital divide as proposed in the international academic literature.
Although digital literacy poverty refers to the lack of digital skills to analyse the production and use of digital content, the aim of this work is to focus on other factors that contribute to this phenomenon. In particular, we want to explore the 'cultural' nature of digital educational poverty in terms of a 'gap' between the 'peripheral' generations of adults in relation to the difficulty of understanding the digital languages, meanings and practices of the younger generations. This is even more evident in formal educational contexts, where this cultural gap between teachers and students becomes a factor that can aggravate the digital educational poverty of the latter. Although DigCompEdu highlights the priority challenges for digital teacher education, the cultural dimension of this gap remains unexplored and, consequently, the training strategies to bridge this gap are implicit and undersized.

Methodology:
The research question, from a theoretical point of view, aims to problematise the concept of digital educational poverty by positioning it in the context of a sociological literature of the cultural approach, oriented towards understanding the figure of the digital divide as an intercultural intergenerational problem, in relation to which it is possible to identify recommendations for teachers and trainers.
From an empirical point of view, we intend to present the results of an educational research with qualitative-quantitative methodology aimed at exploring the representations and practices of digital literacy of a convenience sample of Italian secondary school teachers and students. This in order to highlight how, behind the educational digital poverty and the digital divide of the third level, there is a cultural divide concerning the cultural differences between teachers and students in the way they conceive, act and signify their digital competence.

Findings:
In line with both the established academic literature on digital educational poverty and the digital divide, and the emerging sociological and mediological literature on the digital divide as a cultural divide, the findings highlight how a possible key to understanding the third-level digital divide. The rise of digital educational poverty may therefore be the 'cultural divide', referring to the existing but unexplored gap between cultural models representations and teaching and learning practices of students and teachers.

Conclusion and discussion:
The results of the empirical research and the theoretical examination offer useful indications not only for policy makers in the field of education and training, but also and above all for teachers and trainers who deal with the phenomena of digital educational poverty and with the improvement of their own professional action in the field of digital competence.

Keywords:

Digital educational poverty, digital divide, educational research, digital divide, schools.