The Digital Divide: The Challenge of Technology and Equity
(1) Information technology is influence the way many of us live and work today. We use the internet to look and
apply for jobs, shop, conduct research, make airline reservations, and explore areas of interest. We use E- mail
and internet to communicate instantaneously with friends and business associates around the world. Computers
are commonplace in homes and the workplace.
(2) Although the number of internet users is growing exponentially each year, most of the world’s population does
not have access to computers of the internet. Only 6 percent of the population in the developing countries are
connected to telephones. Although more than 94 percent of U.S households have telephones, only 56 percent
have personal computers at home and 50 percent have internet access. The lack of what most of us would
consider a basic communication necessity -the telephone-does not occur just in developing nations. On some
Native American reservations only 60 percent of the residents have a telephone. The move to wireless
connectivity may eliminate the need for telephone lines, but it does not remove the barrier to equipment costs.
(3) Who has internet access? The digital divide between the populations who have access to the internet and
information technology tools and those who don’t is based on income, race, education, household type, and
geographic location, but the gap between groups is narrowing. Eighty-five percent of households with an
income over $75,000 have internet access, compared with less than 20 percent of the households with
income under $15,000. Over 80 percent of college graduates use the internet as compared with 40 percent of
high school completers and 13 percent of high school dropouts. Seventy-two percent of household with two
parents have internet access; 40 percent of female, single parent households do. Differences are also found
among households and families from different racial and ethnic groups. Fifty-five percent of white households,
31 percent of black households, 32 percent of Latino households, 68 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander
households, and 39 percent of American Indian, Eskimos, or Aleut households have access to the internet. The
number of internet users who are children under nine years old and persons over fifty has more than triple since
1997. Households in inner cities are less likely to have computers and internet access than those in urban and
rural areas, but the differences are no more than 6 percent.
(4) Another problem that exacerbates these disparities is that African-American, Latinos, and Native Americans
hold few of the jobs in information technology. Women about 20 percent of these jobs and receiving fewer than
30 percent of the Bachelor’s degrees in computer and information science. The result is that women and
members of the most oppressed ethnic group are not eligible for the jobs with the highest salaries at graduation.
Baccalaureate candidates with degree in computer science were offered the highest salaries of all new college
graduates.
(5) Do similar disparities exist in schools? Ninety-eight percent of schools in the country are wired with at least one
internet connection. The number of classrooms with internet connection differs by the income level of students.
Using the percentage of students who are eligible for free lunches at a school to determine income level, we see
that the higher percentage of the schools with more affluent students have wired classrooms than those with high
concentrations of low-income students.
(6) Access to computers and the internet will be important in reducing disparities between groups. It will require
higher equality across diverse groups whose members develop knowledge and skills in computer and
information technologies. The field today is overrepresented by white males. If computers and the internet are to
be used to promote equality, they have to become accessible to schools cannot currently afford the equipment
which needs to be updated regularly every three years or so. However, access alone is not enough; Students will
have to be interacting with the technology in authentic settings. As technology has become a tool for learning in
almost all courses taken by students, it will be seen as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. If it is used
in culturally relevant ways, all students can benefit from its power.
