Digital inequality in context: A socio-technical analysis of Arab students’ remote learning in Israel

The COVID-19 pandemic's shift to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) via platforms like Zoom created a global, real-world test for digitally mediated learning. This study provides an in-depth exploration of the multifaceted psycho-academic impacts on a particularly vulnerable population: Arab students in Israel, a minority group facing pre-existing socioeconomic and digital disparities. Through in-depth qualitative interviews with 30 students, I analyzed their lived experiences. To make sense of these narratives, I employ a hierarchical theoretical framework where the Social Shaping of Technology (SST) serves as the primary organizing lens, supported by Bourdieu’s theories of capital to explain structural inputs…