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Abstract: Over the last decades, the issue of digital divide has received particular attention from international bodies and researchers in Western countries. One of the main reasons for this growing interest is related to the implications that digital inequalities have for social development and particularly for education. Despite the relevance of the issue, there are still few studies on the digital divide in China and even less on Chinese K-12 schools'' students. This paper aims at exploring the digital divide issues among Chinese children from an educational and social perspective. Four schools were selected, involving 658 students aged 10–14. Nine hypotheses on Internet inequality indicators (DiMaggio & Hargittai, 2001) and their possible outcomes were tested. The study found that: (1) students'' Internet access at home is better than that at school; (2) compared with parents, teachers have more positive influence on students'' Internet behaviour; (3) students from rural or migrant schools score lower on all the Internet inequality indicators (digital access, autonomy of use, social support, Internet use and self-efficacy) and are therefore more disadvantaged in Internet usage status than their urban peers; (4) there are no significant gender differences; (5) the more education parents have received, the better the conditions of their children according to the listed Internet inequality indicators; (6) the dimensions of the Internet inequality indicators (technical apparatus, autonomy of use, availability of social support, variation of use) are significantly correlated to students'' Internet self-efficacy; (7) there is high correlation between students'' Internet self-efficacy and their exploring behaviours of Internet use and their academic performance. Overall, these results are consistent with data from OECD countries and confirm that the digital divide represents a big social challenge, revealing that schools still have to develop effective strategies to balance social and learning opportunities among students. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Literature review has found that despite the considerable attention focused on 'digital natives', few studies have carefully investigated the characteristics of this group. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the debate on digital natives by providing a 'piece of evidence' on the digital competence status of a group of Chinese teenagers (ninth grade students) randomly selected from the Jiangdong District in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. An Instant Digital Competence Assessment (iDCA) tool, developed by a research group from the University of Florence, was adopted as the measurement tool for the study. Quantitative research was employed and the research design for the study was descriptive in nature. Data analysis results found that the majority of the participating ninth grade students ( n = 317) had personal computers (PCs) and the Internet available at home and the average period of time owing a PC was about 5 years. The iDCA results indicated that (1) participants' overall performance in the iDCA was just 'pass' rather than 'good' or 'excellent', which might imply that digital natives in China are not necessarily digitally competent; (2) there were big disparities among participants as regards their digital competence; (3) participants' digital competence differed depending on their schools and their ages; (4) participants' digital competence was not significantly influenced by such factors as having a PC or not, having the Internet or not at home, frequency of computers and Internet use. On the basis of the findings, the study concluded by highlighting the role of education in improving teenagers' digital competence and by recommending the development of well-designed teaching and learning materials for the Chinese K-12 school system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]