FINDING THE MIDDLE GROUND
Low Income Schools in a
High-Tech World
THE CURRENT SITUATION
Featured Posts
Recent Posts
Search By Tags
Digital Divide vs. Digital Inequality
While many studies refer to the imbalance in technology access as the "digital divide," this term is most prevalent in the early 2000's. What has evolved in the latter half of studies of the 2000's and into the 2010's is the term "digital inequality." Both terms are still used today and cited thousands of times. What do each of them refer to, and what do they mean for our current situation in education?
This Wordle incorporates the most used words in the titles of studies returned on Google searches of about digital divides and digital inequality in education. It provides a visual representation of recurring verbage in scholarly studies.
Digital Divide
Mark Warschauer in "A Literacy Approach to the Digital Divide"
The digital divide refers to "social stratification due to unequal ability to access, adapt, and create knowledge via use of information and communication technologies (ICT)."
Tom Huskerson in "Economic, Racial Digital Divide Creates Larger Education Gap Nationwide"
"The digital divide is the inability to access technology due to socio-economic factors. This hinders schools and students from offering and receiving a quality education."
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in "Understanding the Digital Divide"
"The term “digital divide” refers to the gap between individuals, households, businesses
and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs) and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities. The digital divide reflects various differences among and within countries."
Digital Inequality
Emmanouil Stiakakis et al in "From the Digital Divide to Digital Inequality: A Secondary Research in the European Union"
"The digital divide is nowadays evolving to digital inequality, i.e., the socio-economic disparities inside the ‘online population’."
Mark Borkowski in an open letter to his colleagues at Boise State University and all readers on the Internet
"The Digital Divide really refers to whether or not people have access to the equipment needed where Digital Inequality refers to not only having access to the equipment, but also the same information."
Todd Sparks in "Digital Divide versus Digital Inequality"
Digital inequality is "A refined understanding of the “digital divide” that emphasizes a spectrum of inequality across segments of the population depending on differences along several dimensions of technology access and use."
The Final Weigh In
No matter what we call it...
Digital Divide or Digital Inequality
the struggle, the stratification, the disparity is real.
There is still an achievment gap, or "the disparity in academic performance between groups of students" according to an Education Week article. Technology has the possibility of closing this achievement gap, but with a growing problem of digital inequality in schools worldwide, students are not gaining access to information and literacy of using ICTs.
It is our hope that with the proper resources, education reform, and the right people working together, not only can we nullify the achievement gap, but we can help to make the digital divide and digital inequality a thing only to be read about in history textbooks (which may soon all be online of course).