Digital Media Divide and Its Implications for Early Childhood Educational Quality in Rural Areas: A Case Study in Jember
Keywords:
digital divide, digital learning media, digital literacy, early childhood education, quality of educationAbstract
Digital inequality in early childhood education (ECE) poses a critical barrier to learning quality in rural Indonesia, where infrastructure, teacher capacity, and institutional support are severely limited. This qualitative multiple-case study examined digital media disparity across ten ECE institutions in six rural sub-districts of Jember Regency, analyzing how disparities shape learning quality as operationalized through the three dimensions of the process standard in Permendikbud No. 137/2014: learning planning, implementation, and developmental assessment. Thirty purposively sampled participants institutional heads, teachers, and parents contributed data through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document reviews, analyzed using Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña's interactive model with source and method triangulation. Three interconnected dimensions of digital disparity emerged: (1) infrastructure and device access, (2) teacher digital literacy and pedagogical confidence, and(3) institutional and policy support. The study's central contribution is the empirical identification of teacher pedagogical confidence distinct from technical competence as the primary mediating variable linking digital access to learning process quality. Teachers lacking pedagogical confidence avoided digital tools even when devices were accessible, directly constraining learning implementation quality. Sustainable improvement in rural ECE quality requires an ecosystem-based intervention framework addressing infrastructure, teacher capacity-building, and institutional governance simultaneously, aligned with Indonesia's RPJMN 2025–2029 equity agenda.
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