Digital divide in schools

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: David Akin <dakin () ctv ca>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 09:47:19 -0400
To: "'dave () farber net'" <dave () farber net>
Subject: Digital divide in schools

Hey Dave --

This study, prepared by Statistics Canada, a federal government agency, is a
Canadian one but it touches on a lot of issues important to many IPers:

Digital divide in schools: Student access to and use of computers

   Schools appear to play a vital role in bridging a "digital divide"
between rural and urban high school students in terms of access to computers
and frequency of their use, according to one of the first research papers
done under the new Data Research Centre program.

   However, the same is apparently not the case when it comes to two other
forms of digital divide: the gap between male and female students, and the
gap between students whose parents have low levels of education and those
whose parents are highly educated. Female students, in particular, tend to
report lower levels of computer skills competency.

   The vast majority of urban and rural youth, around 96% in both cases,
reported using a computer during the 12 months prior to the 2000 General
Social Survey, which collected information on the use of technology.
However, the study showed that high school students who live in rural areas
are less likely to have a computer in their home than their counterparts in
urban areas.

   Data from the Youth in Transition Survey showed that only 8% of
households with students aged 15 and 16 in cities with a population
of 100,000 or more had no computer at home. However, the proportion was
twice as high, around 18%, among students in villages with a population of
less than 3,000.

   In contrast, 29% of students who lived in rural villages reported that
they used a computer at school almost everyday, compared with 19% of
students in cities. In addition, 8% of rural youth reported almost daily
computer use at libraries, compared with 4% of students in cities . . .

[Full study at http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/030623/d030623b.htm]



David Akin
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