Digital inequality and directions for overcoming it in the context of human capital development

The article is devoted to study of the conceptual aspects of digital inequality. The authors conducted an interdisciplinary analysis of this category. They reviewed the main approaches to understanding digital inequality. The definition of digital inequality has been clarified as a difference in access to digital opportunities in social, economic, political-demographic, cultural, educational and other areas that exist or deepen as a result of incomplete, uneven or insufficient access to information and communication, computer, telecommunications and digital technologies.There were examined conceptual components of the digital inequality: socio-economic access, competencies, knowledge and skills, psychological and motivational factors, digital literacy and culture, price, speed, content and quality of information and communication technologies and digital resources, infrastructure, institutional structure and political structure. The authors express and substantiate their position concerning the significant role of the digital divide in higher education in the formation of human capital and improvement of the population quality of life. It is proposed to understand the digital inequality in higher education as differences in access, quality of use and in the resulting effects of digital resources, information and communication technologies and the Internet in the learning process. There was made analysis of the digital divide in higher education in the context of a three-level research model for this category. The authors considered the opportunities and barriers to digitalization of higher education in the Russian Federation. They also identified characteristic drivers of the growing digital inequality and directions for reducing it the field of higher education, and namely: infrastructural, socially motivational, institutional. The practical significance of the study is related to the possibility and necessity of using the proposed activities in universities, regional and Federal development programs.