The discourse that digitalization could fix educational problems, notably boosting educational opportunity equality and inclusion underpins many national and international policies and drives many initatives to integrating digitalization into schooling. Numerous research have been conducted on this topic, including policy analysis, case studies, and the factors that determine the consequences of employing digital tools, particularly on the Covid-19 pandemic, in addition to the political concerns behind incorporating digital technologies into education. However, there have not been many in-depth qualitative research on how various individuals view the (in)equality brought about by educational digitalization based on their daily usage experiences. In this study, we attempt to bridge the gap by using China as an example. In recent years, with the central government-oriented “new basic infrastructure construction”, and the "internet+" program, providing the same digital infrastructures for all within a province has been viewed as a fundamental responsibility of local government and articulated as the most effective tool for addressing long-standing concerns about educational inequality in China. China is stimultaneously presenting itself and being acknowledged by international organizations such as UNESCO as a country that excels in utilizing digitalization to ensure educational inclusion and equal access to high quality education for disadvantaged individuals.

This paper investigates, on the one hand, the visible and invisible digital infrastructure differences between rural and urban schools within a province and between provinces, and, on the other, how teachers, the individuals who use digital technologies for teaching on a daily basis, perceive the (in)equality against the backdrop of educational digitalization.

We ask following three questions:

1. What are the differences between each school's digital infrastructures and how did they arise?
2. Do teachers with access to the same digital infrastructures have access to the same teaching resources?
3. How does digitalization affect educators' perceptions of educational equality, and what does educational equality mean for teachers in the context of digitalization?

The concept equality contains different levels of meaning. This study begins by defining equality as varying access to sophisticated technology, in light of the Chinese government's emphasis in policy papers and government-oriented practice, which are asserted, on providing everyone with the same infrastructures and high-quality educational materials. This article seeks to discover, by continual study of the data, what additional layers of (in)equality are generated by teachers.

Methodologically, we conduct in-depth semi-interviews with teachers from seven primary school from different regions of China. We selected three economic significantly different provinces: Zhejiang Province in Eastern China and Anhui Province in Central China, and in Yunnan Province in Southwestern China. In each of the three provinces, public rural and urban schools from economically distinct cities were chosen. In each school, we conduct interviews with teachers from various subject areas (Chinese, mathematics, Music/Arts, English, and technology) and generations (born in 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s). We conduct 105 interviews in total. Each interview lasts between 30 and 70 minutes. All collected data are analyzed by the methodology of grounded theory with the support of the software MAXQDA. We firstly categorize the data collceted according to the above-mentioned research questions and then derive concepts and ideas from the analysis of this data. Detali of sources: Zhejiang Province: An educational digitalization pilot school and a rural complete school in a village from a city economically ranks above the average of the province. An urban and rural school from a city economically most disadvantage city. Anhui Province: An educational digitalization pilot school from an economically leading city. An educational digitalization pilot school and a rural school in economic undisvantage village from previously poverty county.

This paper presents three interesting findings. First, based on school observations and descriptions provided by teachers, we find the accessible digital infrastructures for daily teaching are quite similar in each province. But there are huge gaps in digital tools for AI-oriented extra curriculum, such as Irobort. However, the majority of teachers in rural and urban schools agreed that digital equipment is nearly identical. Second, "Seewo whiteboard" and PowerPoint are the most frequently mentioned digital tools by teachers, who claim that digital technologies are only supplementary tools. While teachers in urban schools are more likely to remark "Seewo whitebroad," rural and urban teachers utilize the free version. In addition, we discover that teachers in China rarely purchase digital resources, and that the sources through which they obtain access to digital resources are typically the same, whether subjects BBS or government-supported platforms. Teachers have varying opinions regarding the functionality and quality of government-supported platforms, but most of them tend to believe that digitalization provides them with equal access to educational resources. Thirdly,most rural and urban teachers agree that with a smart phone, students have access to the same educational resources. However, they believe there are huge gaps between rural and urban students on digital literacy. While not specifically employing the term "cultural capital," the majority of teachers emphasize cultural backgrounds of parents in promoting children's use of digital learning tools. It implies that inequality, rather than resulting from school education, is determined by the type of family in which a child is born.

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