Closing the digital divide

Although digital access is growing among all racial and ethnic groups, black and Hispanic households are far less likely to have access to the Internet than white and AsianAmerican households.

The phrase "digital divide" has become part of the lexicon. It shows up in government reports, in political speeches, and in statements made by such high-tech entrepreneurs as Bill Gates. The phrase describes a nation that is dividing into two camps, one composed of technology haves and the other of technology have-nots. The have-nots, according to government statistics, are more likely to be black and Hispanic.

As computers and the Internet have become part of the fabric of daily life, those on the wrong side of the divide are at a growing disadvantage in everything from pursuing higher education to getting a new job. Or, as the bipartisan, congressional Webbased Education Commission put it in a report early this year: ". . . the Internet could result in greater division between those with access to the opportunities of Web-based learning and those without access."

Government data document what is a troubling trend. Although digital access is growing among all racial and ethnic groups, black and Hispanic households are far less likely to have access to the Internet than white and Asian-American households. According to a U.S. Department of Commerce report, between December 1998 and August 2000 the proportion of black households with access to the Internet from home more than doubled, from 11.2 to 23.5 percent; Hispanic households showed a comparable increase. But both groups' numbers are still much lower than the 46 percent access rate of white households and the 57 percent rate of AsianAmerican households.

More disturbing is the fact that even as access for all groups increased, in relative terms black and Hispanic households lost ground. Between December 1998 and August 2000, the Commerce Department study found that the gap in home Internet access between black households and the national household average increased from 15 to 18 percent. The gap between Hispanic households and the national average widened from 13.6 to 17.9 percent.

OUT OF THE LOOP

For the nation's engineering schools, which are striving to increase the number of underrepresented minorities who enroll, this is not good news. Without ready access to computers and the Internet, say educators, students are less likely to develop the skills and knowledge base that would lead them to study engineering.

Many young people might not even think about pursuing engineering simply because their exposure to the field has been limited by lack of opportunity to work with computers. While virtually all K-12 schools now have computers, they often have far fewer available than they need. The Web-based Education Commission found that schools with the highest percentage of students receiving free and reduced-price lunches averaged 16 students per Internet-linked computer as compared to a national ratio of nine to one. Schools serving youngsters from affluent families have a ratio of seven to one. "Poor schools," the commission concluded, "need a significant investment to reach the ratio of four students per classroom computer considered a minimum level of access for effective use."

Gregg Schoof, manager of engineering student programs at Cleveland State University, has seen the difference between rich schools and poor schools close up. "Kids who come to us from a lot of inner-city schools don't have the opportunity to work individually on computers as much as kids from schools in the outer ring suburbs," he says. "Although many Cleveland schools are connected to the Web, when I have been in them I see students working on a computer in groups. But in the affluent suburbs, the students have modern lab facilities and people have passed tax levies to make sure that their kids have the best equipment. That is reflected across the country in the differences between urban and suburban schools."

Moreover, in schools both rich and poor, many teachers are less than adept at using computers in the classroom. James H. Johnson, Jr., dean of Howard University's school of engineering in Washington, D.C., says that "some school districts are well resourced and know how to incorporate computers into school exercises, and so their students come to college very well prepared. But in other systems, teachers are under-prepared" and are likely to use computers for "menial, repetitive activities." It is students who come from these systems who are most likely to need help once they get to college. Johnson worries that schools that do a poor job of incorporating technology into their curriculum may, in fact, turn students off to the study of math and engineering.

Clearly, those students with easy access to computers and the Internet have a substantial advantage over those whose access is limited. A number of engineering schools, such as those at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), face special challenges because they serve large numbers of students who have had limited access. A study of networking and connectivity at the nation's historically black colleges and universities published by the U.S. Department of Commerce found that fewer than 25 percent of students owned a computer. By contrast, the 1999 Campus Computing Study conducted by Kenneth Green of Claremont Graduate University, which included all institutions of higher education, showed that about one out of every two students had their own computer.