#12 Reading Reflection

Warschauer et al’s Technology and Equity in Schooling: Deconstructing the Digital Divide (in the CI 8395 Reading list) presented a qualitative study compared the availability of, access to, and use of new technologies in a group of low and high SES California high schools. In their study, the student-computer ratios in the schools were similar, the social contexts of computer use differed.

They identified 3 main patterns of technology access and use: perfromativity, workability, and complexity. They suggested a three-pronged approach to the above mentioned conditions. The first one is to ensure the low and high SES schools have higher numbers of well-trained and experienced teachers, staff, and administrators, and provide sufficient funding to the schools where large English language learners have. Second, they suggested that teacher turn their attention away from mastery of software program to use technology for scholarship, research and inquiry. And third, schools need a better approach for addressing unequal access to home computers. They also suggested that narrowing the gap in numbers of computers in high and low SES schools, both in their sample and in the nation at large, is an important first step toward helping overcome a digital divide in education.

Reflection:
The main theme of the above mentioned article-digital divide- based on SES in the education setting relating to one of my research interests- gender inquality in intersectional dimension (such as minority-race/ethnicity women-gender in rural low SES/class contexts). I conducted several literature reviews, and some of them was tied to information technology. In this review, a couple of concepts (such as investigating on rural women's predicments) were inspired by my particiapting in a Rural Families Talk research project with Dr. Walker. The following one was one of my study notes. There are two parts of this review: One was from the global perspective and the other one focused on the U.S. domain.

Part one- Global perspective on the relationship between rural low income women/populations and information technology

Information technology has changed dramatically over the last few years. In particular, Internet, has provided a medium for instantaneous exchange of information. And while many societies are facing the sea change via the unleashed electronic transformation, there are growing concerns regarding whose who are left out or behind. Generally speaking, the poor and the poorest tend to live in the far remote rural areas. It is a global pattern; no matter they are in the underdeveloped countries, such as Bangladesh, or in the post-modern societies, such as America.
Statistics shows an enormous gap in the rural-urban-suburban areas where socio-economic status, gender, and racial background distinguish the digital divide.There is now comprehensive evidence demonstrating gender differences in access to opportunities, resources and participation across the range of civic services and social and economic life chances. In particular, rural low-income women are the weakest link represented in decisionmaking. They are disproprortionately burdened with task loads, have least mobility with which to access resources and services such as heath care, child care facilities, social supports, education, and job opportunities, just to name a few.

Among the poor, gender inequality in particular, deepens the poverty. Women are socially excluded from their proportionate share of the health and wealth of their societies: including women in decisions about rural infrastructure services is a precondition to ensure scarce public resources positively affect the livelihood. (June, 2002, Final report of the World Bank, retrieved from http://www.geocities.com/transport_and_society/ruralinclusion.html ).

In short, it is necessary to identify and rectify the rural low income women’s gender disparities which have negative socio-economic effects on individuals, communities and society as a whole. The social inclusion and rural infrastructure services entail government intervention and policy making to provide effective practices via projects, programs and incentives. Such discourse has developed in Europe, and has been widely incorporated in rural and resource planning in the international communities.

The following section briefly introduces the above mentioned discourse in Europe.

Europe
The rural areas of the European Union are varied in terms of social and economic structure, geography and culture. Rural women too are not a homogeneous group. They have different roles and occupations, on farms and in family businesses, in employment and in community activities. Their needs and interests differ too, particularly from one age group to another, and depending on the size and composition of their family and age of their children. The economic and social changes that rural areas are undergoing do not affect all women in the same way: offering opportunities to some, to others they bring difficult challenges.

Rural economies, particularly those dependent on agriculture, have been affected by the processes of globalization, leading to the restructuring and decline of the agricultural sector, the growth of the service sector and increased emphasis on technology. In many areas, this
has created unprecedented work and employment opportunities, as well as bringing changes in the role and status of women. These changes have also contributed to further shifts in
population, with some rural areas close to towns and cities coming under pressure, while many
remote areas continue to suffer a decline in population.

In some regions of Europe, economic recession and cutbacks in public services have led to further rural decline, remoteness and poor infrastructure. Young people, and above all young women, migrate to the towns and cities in increasing numbers. ( This section is excerpted from Assuring the future of rural Europe, 2000, http://europa.eu.int )

Some practices from the International OrganizationsInternational Labor Organization (ILO) In this section, the focal point of the ILO is to discuss why a basic-needs of technology-related framework is necessary for the low income women/populations.
Most poor people live in the rural areas. Even with an antipoverty slant in development programs, underdeveloped countries have yet to make any significant dent in poverty. It is not surprising to observe the level and growth of incomes which are not correlated with basic-needs' achievements in Africa.

Paucity of jobs, limited purchasing power, and socioeconomic inequalities contribute to the inability of poor countries, poor families, and poor individuals to fulfill their basic needs. For these reasons, the Technology Programme of the International Labour Organization has had a clear antipoverty thrust that relies on employment generation as a major instrument for improving the poor's access, particularly in rural areas, to basic goods and services. ( refer to http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-28596-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html)

The International Women's Tribune Centre (IWTC)
This organization works in partnership with the International Development Research/Eastern and Southern Africa Office (IDRC/Nairobi). This organization has developed a new information tool that offers direct access to information for women who are among the most marginalized in development --poor women with little or no reading ability. The starting place for this initiative is Africa and the starting point is a CD-ROM Rural Women in Africa: Ideas for Earning Money. ( refer to http://www.wougnet.org/News/cdupdate.html).

WIGSAT
This is another international non-profit organization. Its goal is to promote the development and dissemination of science and technology (including ICTs) which enable women, especially those living in developing countries, to contribute to and benefit from growth and development in the global knowledge society. Its range of activities include the facilitation of e-networking (including web sites and listservs); policy analysis and research; lobbying and development and management of projects. (refer to http://www.wigsat.org/gstpmap.html).

In Africa
One of the example from the research was Patrica Liths’s “Uganda: ITCs, empowerment and Women in rural Uganda” , which investigated the African women’s social, technological and information contexts. By identifying the barriers to women's full use of ICTs, and then developed strategies for overcoming those barriers.
The central inquiry concerns African women's use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This includes issues of access, the benefits African women experience and can expect to experience from ICTs, and the role they can and do play in the production and dissemination of information. It emphasizes that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can result to socio-cultural, economic and political change. It has resulted to a shift in development discourse (The World Bank 2004, OECD 2004, CIDA 2004, Hafkin and Wild 2002, G0U 2002, Sorensen 2002, Hafkin and Taggart 2001, Preston 2001, Adeya 2000, ECA 1999). It is now common to hear about Summits, meetings and conferences on ‘ICTs for development’, ‘cyberspace’, ‘digital economy’, ‘information superhighways’, ‘the information society and ‘networked society’ (Preston 2001) among others. A number of bilateral and multilateral donor organisations have now mainstreamed ICTs in their development programmes in order to more effectively meet the millennium development goals (OECD 2003). (refer to ICTs, empowerment and Women in rural Uganda: A SCOT Perspective, A paper presented at the “to think is to experiment”; SSMAC, Centre for Narrative Research, UEL, 22nd April 2005 by Patricia. K. Litho, retrieved from http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/ICTs.htm).

Australia
In Australia, the community networking and interactive communication technology (ICT) projects was based on feminist or social justice principles usually aiming to include a broad diversity of community members. Groups often targeted include women, indigenous people, people of non-English speaking backgrounds or with low incomes, and people living in rural and remote areas. The inclusion and empowerment of rural people has become increasingly important in Australia as governments and community development practitioners seek new community-based solutions to the sustainability of rural and remote communities (Harrison, 1998).
Many of these communities have experienced severe economic decline and a loss of services over the past decade or more. A further factor is the likelihood of a growing ‘digital divide’ between various social groups as access to ICTs such as the Internet and email becomes more important to work, education, citizenship, community development, and social activities.
(Paper published in the proceedings of the Electronic Networks - Building Community: 5th Community Networking Conference, 3-5 July 2002, Monash University, Melbourne, http://www.ccnr.net/?q=taxonomy/term/15).

Asia
Asia is a leader in providing cutting-edge expertise to drive the global information technology industry. Yet, with the exception of a few countries, it also is the home of unmitigated poverty, overpopulation and a persistent gender gap in education and literacy. The Asia-Pacific region shows great diversity in gender-related indicators and differential gains in the advancement of women and girls. But a consistent concern shared among all the countries is one of stark urban-rural disparity in development gains, particularly in education. The rural female children face greater disadvantages than rural male children do. While prevailing social attitudes and cultural norms could explain the disparity prevalent in the communities and within the household, it is necessary to acknowledge the issue of imbalances in the allocation of national resources to serve the rural sector.

South Asia- Gender aspects of conventional technologies
In the mid-1980s, several studies looked for areas where improved technology could both reduce the workload of and generate income for rural women in South Asia. These studies found that production linkages may or may not always be beneficial for women. Some examples are the following:
The mechanization of the fishing industry in Kerala, India, has resulted in a large increase in the volume of the fish catch and increased women's employment in net making, coir and prawn processing, marketing, and trade.
An alternative technology for milk preservation introduced in the Punjab, Pakistan, has strengthened the backward production linkage with villages near a sterilization plant, but the tendency in the rural family has been for men to pocket the earnings generated by women's additional work. Field-based ILO technical-cooperation projects for women from three developing subregions (South Asia and West and South Africa) indicate that it is feasible to widen and diversify women's income-earning opportunities by introducing improved technologies. Applying improved technologies could generate women's employment in nontraditional areas, and upgrading the technologies in women's traditional occupations could simultaneously raise their productivity and reduce the drudgery of their work. Channeling improved technologies through rural women's participatory organizations contributes significantly to women's empowerment. Fostering of linkages with commercial suppliers of technology, training institutes, and marketing channels has been a key element in the strategy for women's empowerment.
The emerging experience of developing countries suggests that the kinds of jobs women will be able to get will continue to be associated with women's comparative advantage, that is, with gender traits that are not recognized, or paid for, as professional skills. When industries adopt improved technologies, the women are relegated to the industrial periphery, stressing, therefore, the core - periphery segmentation of the labor force. In traditional industries, such as textiles, footwear, and rattan furniture, the technological improvement of the production process seems to exacerbate the existing gender division of labor, where the better paid jobs with higher skills content are undertaken by men and the lower paid jobs with lower skills content are undertaken by women. (refer tohttp://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac788e/AC788E03.htm).

The Global Challenges Ahead
The centrality of gender equality and women's empowerment goals is also recognized in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. The plan stresses the importance of enhancing “the role of women at all levels and in all aspects of rural development, agriculture and food security”. Similarly it recognizes that to effect needed changes, “women should be able to participate fully and equally in policy formulation and decision-making”.
The reiteration of international commitments to gender equality and to the empowerment of women contrasts sharply with the inadequate progress that has been made in reducing gender gaps. Undoubtedly, persisting gender gaps are one of the reasons that poverty-reduction targets for the year 2000 were not met. If the new targets are to be reached, efforts and resources must be significantly scaled up and better coordinated in the future. Past experience shows that doing more of the same will not be enough. Nor will economic growth be sufficient if women continue to be denied opportunities. There is in fact a mounting body of evidence pointing to the need to expand women’s rights and representation, and to bring about cultural changes in order to reap the full benefits of economic growth.
Globalization undoubtedly presents enormous opportunities in terms of increased access to knowledge (made possible by new information technologies) and to new markets and employment possibilities. However, it also poses special challenges for the more marginal groups. (Indeed, in an increasingly globalized world, income and gender inequalities are reported to be growing in many countries.) The poor, and especially women, often lack the bargaining power and organizational capacity to grapple with new markets and risks. In such a highly volatile and uneven global environment, there is a need for close monitoring of the impacts of global processes on the poorest and on women in particular. Furthermore, economic and social unrest, and conflict, can lead to the restructuring of societies and the curtailing of women's freedoms. Capacity-building of poor women and men and their institutions, enabling them to advocate for their rights, will be essential in countering the risks of increased vulnerability.(Source: Women as Agents of Change, IFAD (2003).

Part two- The rural low income populations and information technology and Information Technology in the U.S. (There are not sufficient data differentiating gender and IT in the rural contexts. So my reading mainly was focusing on the general population in rural-urban-suburban spectrum instead of specific gender dichotomy). So this part of review did not extract sufficient gender component from the data collected.

After a brief glance of the main relationships between low-income women (gender inequality) and technology in developed, developing and underdeveloped counties, the following section will come back to focus on what the scenario the U.S. looks like.

As of September 30, 2007, 1.244 billion people use the Internet according to Internet World Stats. Writing in the Harvard International Review, philosopher N.J. Slabbert, a writer on policy issues for the Washington DC-based Urban Land Institute, has asserted that the Internet is fast becoming a basic feature of global civilization, so that what has traditionally been called “civil society” is now becoming identical with information technology society as defined by Internet use. (refer to Slabbert, N. J. The Technologies of Peace, Harvard International Review, June 2006). Based on such understanding, the following data that I collected were focused on issues relating Internet.

As the proverbial saying, information technology is a double edged-sword. But without accessing to advancing telecommunications technology, rural areas will be left even far more behind. As in one of the emails sent to you a couple weeks ago, Rowley points out one of the major issues tied to rural disadvantaged status is the rural communications infrastructure. He also identified major obstacles to the above issues identified by the author are market obstacle,regulatory obstacles , physical/technical obstacles and end-user obstacles. To overcome these obstacles, he suggests the following strategies:
a. Doing nothing and hoping that the market provides the necessary services
b. Using regulatory and property management procedures to improve access to advanced telecommunications
c. Using government purchasing power to create a buyer's market.
d. Developing publicly owned infrastructure
e. Using Rural Area Networks (RANs)
f. Interconnecting to urban networks.
g. Using wireless technologies.
h.Working with alternative providers.

In short, all the nifty technology in the world won't improve the lives of rural people, if they can't or won't use it. The predicament lies in that women of the low income rural areas tend to be less benefited from the IT, thus are less likely to demand it. And the less demand from the advanced IT services, they tend not to utilize and benefit from it. So it can end up a viciously cyclical condition.

To understand the above conditions, some researchers and organizations conducted various types of surveys on issues tied to rural low income communities to give stakeholders a better outlook of such a landscape across the U.S.

There are approximately 59-65 million adults living in rural communities, or 21% of the
U.S. adult population. Researchers in this field point out that Internet penetration has grown in rural communities, but the gap between them and suburban and urban communities has remained constant over time, and the rural residents are less likely to be Internet users than those who live in suburbs or cities. According to the Pew Internet & American Life
Project survey in 2003, rural Internet penetration has remained roughly 10 percentage points
behind the national average in each of the last four years ( 67% of urban residents use the Internet; 66% of suburban residents use the Internet, and 52% of rural residents use the Internet).

Internet penetration by percentage


2000 2001 2002 2003
Rural 41 50 49 52
Suburban 55 62 63 66
Urban 51 62 58 67
National 50 59 58 63


Community types as percentages of online population

2000 2001 2002 2003
Rural 19 20 21 20
Suburban 51 53 52 52
Urban 29 27 26 29

(Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys. 2003: March-August 2003 N=3112, Margin of error is ±2%. 2002: March-May 2002 N= 4263, Margin of error is ±2%. 2001: Aug-Sept 2001, N= 4482 Margin of error is ±2%. 2000: N= 21789, Margin of error is ±1%. )

In 2002, the Pew Internet Project gauged the impact of the Internet by asking to what extent users incorporate the Internet into “major life moments” – big decisions and occasions such as making large purchases, changing jobs, or dealing with an illness – that respondents had experienced in the two previous years. Revisiting that data reveals that the Internet is less likely to be a part of major occasions in rural users’ lives than in urban and suburban users’ lives., but in terms of employment, 72% of rural users say the Internet played no role in a job change. By comparison, 55% of urban users and 61% of suburban users said the Internet played no part in their job change.

Rural residents also report a lower instance of high-speed availability to their homes than do urban and suburban residents. In October 2002, the Pew Internet Project asked, Do you currently live in an area where you can subscribe to high-speed Internet service if you want to? Responses to this question do not measure actual physical facilities in each community type, but they indicate how many residents are aware of whether they have the option of broadband access. Rural residents are more likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to say that they don’t know if high-speed connection is available. Dial-up is in decline, but a large percentage of rural users continue to use dial-up connections.

Satellite and wireless connections hold the promise to serve more remote areas, and in 2003 the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Communications Commission launched a joint initiative to stimulate wireless broadband adoption in rural communities. However, the number of wireless users is presently too small to assess the growth of wireless connections.

The cost of deployment remains a barrier to rural residents’ access, and according to Pew Internet Project numbers, access remains an issue. Nevertheless, according to the NTCA, many local telephone companies and cooperatives are already offering broadband connections. In sum, there is at times a lack of demand for high-speed services in rural areas, even when connections are available. (National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. “NTCA 2003 Internet/Broadband Availability Survey Report.” May 2003. Available at: http://www.ntca.org/content_documents/2003broadband.pdf.)

Rural Internet Demographics: Who’s Online?

Rural communities differ significantly from urban and suburban areas in terms of demographics such as age, income and educational attainment. These variables, among others, are strong predictors for Internet use. Statistical analysis that examines the principal drivers for differences in Internet penetration by geographical type suggests that some of the differences are driven by Internet adoption patterns among low-income rural individuals. Living in a rural area in itself has little or no influence as to whether one goes online. However, low-income people in rural areas are less likely to be online than low-income people living in urban or suburban areas; Internet adoption among middle and upper income people is similar across community type. In each community type, Internet users are evenly split in terms of sex. Rural residents are older than suburban and urban residents, and this probably affects Internet penetration rates.

Regression analysis shows that, in some (but not all) model specifications, living in a rural area is a modestly negative and significant predictor of Internet adoption at the 10% level of significance. The interaction of income and being a rural resident is, however, significant; this means that the significance on Net adoption of living in a rural area varies by income level. This is the basis for the finding that low-income residents of rural areas are less likely to be online than low-income residents of urban or suburban locations. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys, March-August 2003. General population: N = 20437, Margin of
error is ±1%. Online population: N=3061, Margin of error is ±2%. Internet penetration: N=4848, Margin of error is ±2%.)

Educational attainment is associated with Internet use in rural communities as elsewhere. Significant increases in Internet penetration accompany increasing levels of educational attainment until leveling off after completion of a four-year degree.

The Activities Rural Internet Users Pursue

Rural users also participate in a number of other online activities, including online transactions. But in most cases, rural users are less likely than urban and suburban users to perform them. This is very likely connected to the fact that a relatively large number of
rural Internet users are relative newcomers to the online world. As a general rule, newcomers are less likely than veterans to have performed transactions online.

Rural users are the least likely to bank online (28%), to make a travel reservation online (49%), or to buy a product online (57%). A lower proportion of rural users go online to do job-related research, and urban and suburban users are also more likely than rural users to conduct information searches for health, housing and employment. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys. See Appendix C for sample sizes, margins of error, and survey periods
for each activity.)

There are a few activities that rural users are more likely than urban or suburban users to have done online. Searching for religious or spiritual information is more popular among rural users (35%) than among suburban (29%) and urban (24%) users. In fact, among rural users, gathering religious or spiritual information is more popular than banking online (29%), looking for a place to live (26%), and downloading music (26%, June 2003). Compared to suburban users, rural users are more likely to send or receive instant messages. Even relatively experienced rural Internet users are less likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to engage online transactions.

Experienced rural users are more likely than others to send and receive instant messages, and to seek health information, and look for religious and spiritual information online. Rural users with three years of experience don’t appear to do things much differently from the rural user population in general, but there are some things they do more often. More experienced users continue to send and receive IM at rates comparable to or greater than urban and suburban users. And among experienced users, searching for spiritual or religious information continues to be more popular among rural users (36%) than their suburban (30%) and urban (24%) counterparts. Among experienced users, those living in rural communities are more likely than others to seek out health information. About 73% of experienced rural users have sought health information online.

Rural users were also less likely than suburban users to have used the Internet to deal with an illness or health condition, but more likely than urban users to have done so. While 37% of suburban users say that the Internet played no part in dealing with their illness, 46% of rural users say so. Meanwhile, 57% of urban users said that the Internet was not a part of coping with their condition. Finally, most rural and suburban users starting new romantic relationships say the Internet had nothing to do with it (75%) while 60% of urban users say so. (Source: January 2002 tracking survey. N=1,415, margin of error is ±3%)

Internet users in all three community types say that the Internet is good for a variety of pursuits. First and foremost, they say it is good for getting daily information such as weather reports, news, and sports scores. Next, the majority of users in each community type – over 80% of them – say that the Internet is a good way to send and receive greetings and invitations, and to communicate with friends and family. Third, it is a place in which to be entertained. These sentiments corroborate findings from 2002, which found that most Internet users expect to find what they are looking for when going online. (Horrigan, John and Lee Rainie. “Counting on the Internet.” Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life Project, December 2002. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=80.)

Rural Attitudes Toward the Internet

One way to measure diffusion of the Internet is the attitudes and beliefs that users and non-users hold toward it. Rural Internet newcomers have mixed feelings about computers and technology, but more experienced users are more positive about them. For less experienced users, computers inspire mixed feelings. In all community types, larger percentages of new users than more experienced users harbor mixed feelings about computers and technology. This is especially the case for newer rural users. In a survey the Pew Internet Project conducted in October 2002, 50% of rural users with fewer than three years online reported “mixed feelings” towards computers and technology, whereas 32% of comparable urban users say this and 27% of suburban users say so. In fact, experienced rural Internet users are more positive about computers and technology than similarly experienced urban and suburban Internet users. While 23% of both urban and suburban users with four or more years experience online report mixed feelings, only 16% of rural users with three or more years experience hold mixed feelings about computers and technology. Most (84%) rural users with three years or more online report that they like computers and technology, whereas 75% of their urban counterparts and 76% of their suburban counterparts say this.

The third part of my review focused on policy domain -the U.S. telecommunication Policy relating to rural low income populations

The U.S. Policy makers have long hoped that the Internet could bring especially powerful benefits to rural areas, many of which have suffered economic problems as residents migrate to cities and suburbs. Many officials in small towns and rural regions hoped that technology that allowed people to communicate easily and cheaply with any modem owner in the world and to access all kinds of information, products and services on the Web would allow people to remain in rural settings while reaping some new social and economic rewards. Rural leaders and technology enthusiasts have dreamed that the Internet’s capacity to render physical location less meaningful would in some ways make rural life more desirable.

Connecting to the international discourse concerning the disadvantaged low income populations who are not benefited from the information technology, the U.S. Telecommunication policy includes virtually everything that an information society uses to convey facts and ideas. The U.S. telecommunication policy began in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 covering telephones, wireless telephony, ham radios, cable TV, computers, the Internet, broadcast radio, broadcast TV, distance learning, telemedicine, satellite communications, interstate trade, public morality over the airwaves, cross-ownership of media, telecommunication equipment manufacturing, and many other communication and information economic activities partially or in their entirety.

Federal policy addresses economic efficiency and equity. The policy intends to facilitate the development and adoption of new communication and information technology while addressing the universal availability of communication services. The primary policy vehicle is the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was the first comprehensive rewrite of the Communications Act of 1934. The Act modified previous legislation, such as the 1934 Communications Act, Cable Act of 1992, and judicial actions, such as the early 1982 consent decree in the breakup of Ma Bell (AT&T). (refer to Rural Telecommunications: Rural Telecommunication Policy http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Telecom/ruraltelecompolicy.htm).

A brief conclusion
If the public policy intends to facilitate the development and adoption of new communication and information technology while addressing the economic efficiency and equity of communication services (USDA, 2007), then rural low income women’s information lag behind would be a major concern for such policy endeavor.