Unveiling Disaster-Induced Social Justice Failures Through the Widening Digital Divide Among Primary School Students: A Capability Approach Perspective

Amid global disruptions, exacerbated by the current crisis, existing educational disparities, particularly affecting marginalized groups, have deepened. This study delves into the profound implications of disasters on existing education disparities, emphasizing the exacerbation of the digital divide during times of crisis, utilizing Amartya Sen’s and Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach as the theoretical framework. We investigate two key questions: (1) How does the digital divide affect children from various socioeconomic backgrounds during upheaval? (2) How do disaster-induced disruptions worsen existing social justice issues? Our robust case study, enriched by three comprehensive data collection phases, includes semi-structured interviews and open-ended-question with 41 participants over a 4-month period in 2020 to 2021. Our findings reveal that vulnerable groups experienced “digital alienation†during educational disruptions, prompting government actions to address the digital divide through measures like the Educational-Informatics-Network Connection Hubs and tablet distribution. In sum, the study underscores how disaster-induced disruptions, surpassing the scope of any specific event, serve as catalysts for deepening of educational inequities amongst already disadvantaged groups. It is recommended to revise the digital divide taxonomy, which is an indicator of participation in digital processes, determined under normal conditions, considering the human agency requirements specific to the profound failure of social justice during times of catastrophes such as COVID-19, Ukrainian-Russian war, and Feb. 6th Earthquakes in Türkiye.