COMPUTERS AS BARRIER TO OR VEHICLE FOR EQUITY
Response to “Computer Access Equity”

Marianne LaFrance and Anne Meyer

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Factors Affecting Equity of Access to Computers
• 2.1 Availability of Information Technology
• 2.2 Appropriateness of Fit Between Technology and User
• 2.3 Social Context of Computing
• 2.4 Summary of Factors Affecting Access
• 3. Computing Equity in the Context of Education
• 3.1 Computers as Prerequisite for Education
• 3.2 Computers as Access Devices
• 3.2.1 AIDS Videodisc with HyperCard Software
• 3.2.2 Speech Synthesis for Reluctant Writers
• 3.2.3 Eskimo children’s multimedia stories
• 3.3 Implications for Equity
• 4. Conclusions
• 5. References

4. Conclusions

Professor Maner has raised a number of issues around computer access equity. We concur on a number of points but diverge on others. They are as follows:

First, while we agree with Maner that computer access in our culture is inequitable, we part company with his tendency to attribute many of these to “caprice of nature or fluke of social circumstance.” Informational technologies did not derive from nor do not they exist in a social vacuum. Rather they originate from a society already solidly partitioned into unequal sectors and they often contribute to these distinctions not so much by conscious intent but by dint of institutional intransigence. We have directed attention to three manifestations of these processes, namely computer unavailability, inappropriateness of hardware and software to different kinds of users, and cultural prejudices about the computer-worthiness of different groups of people.

Secondly, while we agree with Maner that computers are essentially tools, we have gone further in suggesting that the issue of computer equity needs to highlight that computers are a means not an end. The issue is multipurpose access to information and knowledge not possession of the thing itself. The question persists: who shall be denied access to the tools?

Thirdly, by virtue of offering an expanded repertoire of access to learning, we have argued that computers potentially alter what it means to be literate as well as what it means to get an education. Specifically, having the right to an education may soon be tantamount to having right of access to computing resources.

Finally, we suggest that computers can and should be used as vehicles for increased social opportunity on one’s own terms. This may not be required on the basis of distributive justice but it does seem meritorious nonetheless.

Marianne LaFrance – Boston College

Anne Meyer – CAST, Peabody, MA

5. References

Steele, C.M., (1988), “The Psychology of Self-Affirmation: Sustaining the Integrity of the Self,” In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol 21, 261 – 302.

Zuboff, S., (1988), In the Age of the Smart Machine, New York: Basic Books.

Woodward, C. Vann, “Freedom and the Universities,” The New York Review of Books, Volume XXXVIII, Number 13 (July 18, 1991), pp. 32 – 37.

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