The integration of emerging technologies in socioeconomically disadvantaged educational contexts. The view of international experts

Background The development of students' digital skills is essential to access the labour market and interact with society, being especially important in disadvantaged socioeconomic contexts affected by the digital divide. Objectives The investigation has two objectives. On the one hand, to study the integration of ICT in disadvantaged contexts and, on the other, to know the critical use that is made of them in schools as a source of educational change. Methods In this research, eight international experts in education are interviewed on what they consider to be the best way of implementing new technologies in disadvantaged contexts to achieve educational improvement. A mixed methodology has been used, qualitative through semi‐structured interviews and quantitative through a text mining analysis of the interviews' transcripts with the R programming language. Results and Conclusions The results show that the teaching staff is the key element. The curriculum, objectives and school director's help are also highlighted, as well as the collaboration of the students who have to be provided with the necessary digital resources. At the state level, greater funding and support from universities are needed to support research and the quality of teacher training. Lay Description New technologies favour inclusion as long as they are used correctly. The digital literacy of society is important. Teachers must make their schedules for an uncertain future. To achieve educational change, the entire educational community must participate.