IV International Research Conference "Interaction. Integration. Inclusion: labyrinths of meanings and horizons of opportunities"

The organizer is the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research, HSE University, in partnership with The Journal of Social Policy Studies, conference dates are 5-7 August. On Monday, a plenary session and a section "Digitalization, Trends and Technologies in the context of social Inequalities" were held. Maria Yudina, Senior Researcher at International Laboratory for Digital Transformation in Public Administration of the HSE University, Pavel Suvorkov, Associate Researcher at the Center for Arctic and Siberian Studies of the SI FNSC RAS, and Ilya Ermolin, Candidate of Political Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology at HSE University – St. Petersburg, co-authored the report for the section.

The report of the team was devoted to the topic "Digitalization of the population: an analysis of the goals of accessing the Internet." The study of these practices contributes to the study of the third level of the digital divide – the inequality in motivation between ICT users, how successfully they use technology to improve the standard and quality of life. The results of an in-house analysis of the materials of sample surveys of Rosstat allow us to conclude that the involvement of individuals in the use of various digital services can be considered as a diffusion of innovations with pronounced differentiation by age, educational, settlement and social profile. Given the focus of the conference on the issue of inclusion, a significant portion of the report focused on the specific aspects of internet use by people with disabilities. In particular, speakers drew the audience's attention to the fact that there are differences in the nature and frequency of internet use among different categories of disabled people.

In general, the section "Digitalization, trends and technologies in the context of social inequalities" included 15 reports. Participants discussed methods for studying the third level of digital inequality, approaches to assessing the relationship between Internet practices and socio-economic status, etc. The presentations covered a wide range of theoretical issues related to digitalization: the relationship between geolocation functions and inequality, citizenship and video games, inequality and open science, social networks and ethnic conflicts, mobility and digital inequality. This diversity well reflects the pervasive nature of modern digital technologies and the rich potential of the research field.