Addressing the digital divide in remote learning through a systematic review of global approaches and evidence from the pre-pandemic to post-pandemic era

This systematic review examines 45 studies on global approaches to digital inclusion in remote learning between 2015 and 2025, positioning the COVID-19 pandemic not as the origin of the digital divide but as a catalyst that exposed and intensified longstanding inequalities in access, skills, and meaningful digital participation. Drawing on foundational digital divide scholarship—including Hargittai’s work on digital skills, Helsper’s digital inequalities framework, Correa’s digital capital, and van Deursen’s multidimensional competencies—this paper synthesizes interventions designed to mitigate disparities in remote learning. Guided by van Dijk’s four-stage access model and Sen’s Capability Approach, the review identifies contributors to inequality (RQ1), categories of strategies implemented globally (RQ2), and how their effectiveness has been reported in the literature (RQ3). Findings show that technological access initiatives, digital literacy programmes, socio-economic support mechanisms, and policy-level interventions have yielded uneven but instructive outcomes. The review contributes a theoretically grounded and comprehensive mapping of strategies for digital inclusion and offers evidence-based recommendations for more equitable remote learning systems.