Social aspects of education digitalization in the context of the pandemic: philosophical analysis

Over the past decades, modern society has teetered among a variety of challenges and threats to its sustainability. Among them were factors of migration changes, global security challenges from extremism and terrorism, risks accompanying the development of the information society. However, the year 2020 introduced a new factor of the global pandemic, which has influenced almost all aspects of social development and has largely irreversible consequences. The state of openness of the social system became a threat to its security, and measures were taken to artificially personalize and disintegrate the subjects in a real environment, which, on the other hand, increased their digital connections and communications. The emerging risks to life and health, due to their priority, caused the shift of labour and educational activities to a remote environment, becoming a catalyst for a digital turn to mass products and services in the cyber-environment. At the same time, the cyber-environment, information, electronic online culture, due to its specificity and high level of openness, has its own risks for the subjects, which have acquired a global character under the new conditions. Among the most important consequences of the pandemic in the social sphere was the process of the digital transformation of education, which received global coverage and forced acceleration both for those who were already prepared for it and for the majority, for whom it became a new necessity. The research aims to study the social and ethical-legal processes that accompany the digitalization of education, primarilythe problem of the digital divide, within the framework of a socio-philosophical analysis. The object of the study is the digital transformation of education, understood as a multi-stage transition process of management, training, control, evaluation processes in the field of education to a digital environment based on modern services, open resources, interactive communication methods, the use of big data and artificial intelligence. The subject of the study is the situation of the digital divide as one of the most important social problems associated with the digital turn in education in 2020.