From Digital Exclusion to Digital Inclusion: Shaping the Role of Parental Involvement in Home-Based Digital Learning – A Narrative Literature Review

Rapid advancements in technology have led to Digital Technologies (DT) playing an increasingly prominent role in the digital transformation of education, prompting national and international educational policies to prioritize the embedding of DT in teaching and learning. However, this technological progress has simultaneously exposed a digital divide, resulting in certain parents and families, who are already socially excluded, being susceptible to digital exclusion. This article focuses on the influence of this subsequent digital exclusion on Parental Involvement (PI) in home-based digital learning, a crucial factor in supporting children navigate the digital transformation of education. Through a nonsystematic narrative literature review, this article addresses two research questions: first, how digital exclusion shapes PI in children's home-based digital learning; and second, what approaches can schools employ to promote the digital inclusion of parents through shaping their self-efficacy for engaging with DT in support of PI. Emergent themes from the literature review include: the exclusionary impact of growing DT integration in education, the central role of PI in home-based digital learning, and the intertwined roles of self-efficacy and motivation in shaping PI. This article concludes with a discussion of considerations for school-based interventions, conceptualizes the link between PI and home-based digital learning, and proposes a call for future research.