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ICT AND EDUCATIONAL (DIS)ADVANTAGE: CULTURAL RESOURCES AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

Ethnographies of Educational and Cultural Conflicts: Strategies and Resolutions

ISBN: 978-0-76231-112-5, eISBN: 978-1-84950-275-7

Publication date: 6 December 2004

Abstract

Because access to new technologies is unequally distributed, there has been considerable discussion in Australia and elsewhere about the growing gap, the “digital divide,” between the information-rich and information-poor (Bolt & Crawford, 2000; Castells, 2001; Companie, 2001; Gordon, 2001; Haywood, 1998; Negroponte, 1996; Nixon, 2001). Most schools have incorporated computers and Internet access into classrooms, partly in response to concerns about the gap between technology “haves” and “have nots” (Facer et al., 2001). Such concerns have led to high-profile information technology policy initiatives in the USA (Lentz, 2000; US Department of Commerce, 1999), U.K. (Selwyn, 2000), Australia (Foster, 2000) and other nations. Many families have invested in computer systems at home in order to provide their children with access to the growing body of information available through technology. Similarly, in an attempt to “redress the balance between the information rich and poor” by providing “equal access to the World Wide Web” (Virtual Communities, 2002), the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Virtual Communities (a computer/software distributor) and Primus (an Internet provider) in late 1999 formed an alliance to offer relatively inexpensive computer and Internet access to union members in order to make “technology affordable for all Australians” (Virtual Communities, 2002).

Citation

Angus, L., Sutherland-Smith, W. and Snyder, I. (2004), "ICT AND EDUCATIONAL (DIS)ADVANTAGE: CULTURAL RESOURCES AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE", Jeffrey, B. and Walford, G. (Ed.) Ethnographies of Educational and Cultural Conflicts: Strategies and Resolutions (Studies in Educational Ethnography, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 45-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-210X(04)09004-7

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited