Repeatedly, it has been argued that advancements in digitalisation could be beneficial for rural areas. However, digital inequalities persist and affect rural communities as well. Schools can play a key role in bridging digital inequalities, but little attention has been paid to the specific conditions rural schools find themselves in when facing continuous digital developments. Therefore, we apply the digital inclusion lens and explore the impact of digital developments on rural schools in the German context. In 2019, we conducted 16 in-depth interviews with heads and teachers from rural elementary and secondary schools in Baden-Wurttemberg and Lower Saxony. We found that smaller rural schools especially can experience difficulties and conclude that the contribution of schools to a digital-included society is subject to a geographical lottery. This could eventually increase existing rural–urban digital inequalities and these findings are also relevant in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing a sudden switch to distance learning.

The transition to a digitally inclusive and knowledge-based rural society can be challenging. Digital hubs are often proposed as a way of overcoming digital exclusion in rural and small-town contexts, yet studies into how to set up such a hub in these challenging contexts are scarce. While hubs are usually associated with an urban environment, this case study deals with the development of a rural digital hub over several years in a small town in East Groningen (NL). In the context of an Interreg project, observations during project meetings, in-depth interviews and document analysis were conducted to closely monitor the hub’s development process. Initially, the hub initiators aimed at stimulating business activities and innovation linked to digital technologies. Thereby, an originally urban digital hub concept was copied into a rural context without a rural translation. Along the way, they were forced to adapt and scale down the scope of the project while at the same time, a broader target group had to be formulated. Moreover, the municipality lacked an overarching digital strategy, which compromised demand aggregation and supply synchronisation – two essential ingredients for rural digital hubs.