The Digital Divide In Our Education System

Don Jason
Dj320306@ohio.edu


Former President Bill Clinton said that technology provided the tools needed to assure no child, regardless of socioeconomic status, was left behind. I found a research study by Dianne Thomas called “ The Digital Divide: What Schools in Low Socioeconomic Areas Must Teach.” This study ran in the summer of 2008 and it deal with low income families in Mississippi. The study looked at Third Graders and based on records provided by the State Department of Education determined which students where low income and which were middle to high income. 1,119 surveys were completed and nearly half of them were taken by students in small rural towns.


As expected the children living in the lower socioeconomic levels didn’t have the same access level to computer and internet as the students living in high socioeconomic levels. 76 percent of students from lower income families had computer at home; however only 65 percent of these computers had internet access. 94 percent of students from higher income families had computers; however, 86 percent of these computers had internet service.


95 percent of students from lower income families use computers at schools while 99 percent of students from higher income families used computers at school. I feel that this topic is important for my research paper because so much attention is paid to the digital divide in terms of people not knowing about or using technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, email and AIM; but, we fail to realize that the first step to all of these things is internet access.


I also think it is very important for children to have access to the computer and the internet, with supervision of course. I have a little brother who is 9 years old and he is starting to know more about technology that me… and that is good. Knowledge is power and knowing something doesn’t cost a person anything. I didn’t grow up surrounded by computers and I feel like I am playing catch up.


For instance, I used to be a broadcast major and every time I went to a seminar or a workshop or took a new class the technology shown was always brand new to me. Then, I would see someone who went to a wealthy suburban high school and they would talk about how they have used InDesign, Quark, Illustrator, and Photoshop for high school assignments. They even went so far as to say their high school had a close circuit TV station so they could do the news for their school and shoot and edit video. So, I know what is like to feel left behind. However this has empowered me to talk to as many people as I can to set up tutorials with them so they can give me the skills I am lacking.


Now I am researching to find a case study or an example of a school that had these technology access problems but then did something about these issues to help their students. If anyone comes across an article or study please let me know?