Increased use of electronic learning resources will not overcome the key issues of social exclusion and the digital divide
Neil Selwyn
Cardiff University School of Social Sciences
Opening talk given the ALT-C 10th Annual Conference ‘Conference Debate’
Sheffield, September 2003
Abstract / Summary: Education is being used by governments in developed countries as a means through which to overcome the ‘digital divide’ and reduce social exclusion from the ‘information age’. But can education and technology really be expected to overcome what are deep-rooted social inequalities?
Keywords: digital divide, social exclusion, ICT, technology, computers, learndirect
Address for Correspondence:
Neil Selwyn
School of Social Sciences
Cardiff University
Glamorgan Building
King Edward VII Avenue
Cardiff CF10 3WT
UNITED KINGDOM
Email:
www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/selwyn
Increased use of electronic learning resources will not overcome the key issues of social exclusion and the digital divide
Neil Selwyn
Cardiff School of Social Sciences
Discussion of education and technology is all too often marred by spurious ‘futurology’. When discussing the ‘impact’ of educational technology it is often impossible to get beyond the playground logic of, ‘Ah yes, but in five years everyone will have the internet/broadband/a personal robot tutor’ (delete as appropriate). As the short history of our field shows, predicting the future is very easy to get spectacularly wrong. It is also very difficult to get even slightly right.
Thus when asked to speculate on the social implications of increasing levels of e-learning all that one can say with confidence is that increased use of electronic learning resources has not in the past - and is not at the present time - overcoming the key issues of social exclusion and the digital divide. Moreover, there is little to suggest that this will change in the near future.
We know from the vast amount of ‘digital divide’ research since the early 1990s that people’s access to, and use of, ICTs remains stubbornly delineated along the main social fault-lines of socio-economic status and age. Other associated factors such as ethnicity, educational background, geographical location and, to a certain extent, gender also remain important indicators of whether or not ICTs play a significant role in people’s lives.
We also know that this situation has persisted in the face of billion dollar initiatives developed to facilitate ‘universal’ public access to ICTs in municipal sites such as schools, colleges, libraries and museums. These inequalities have also persisted in the face of the vast amount of ICT skills training which is now available at all levels of education - as well as the development of a multi-billion dollar ‘e-learning’ marketplace and associated opportunities to learn via ICT on an ‘anytime, anyplace, anypace’ basis.
Yet the nebulous notion of a ‘digital divide’ refers to far more than simple access to, and use of, ICT. At the heart of the debate is people’s exclusion from being able to use ICTs meaningfully in an ‘information society’ where ICTs are a fundamental means through which to work, play, produce, consume, spend, save, learn, vote and be part of the local community. In short the ‘digital divide’ refers to some people’s ability to use ICTs to live well in contemporary society when compared to other people’s apparent inability to do so.
Although people now deride the naivety of Newt Gingrich’s assertion that overcoming the digital divide was simply a case of subsidising the cost of a laptop ‘for every poor person’, political thinking has not progressed much beyond this limited ‘cause and effect’ viewpoint. In fact education has emerged as the over-simplified political solution through which to tackle the perceived problems of the digital divide. Educational institutions can be used to provide an opportunity to use computers for those without access elsewhere. Electronic learning resources can be used to provide all citizens and workers with the skills needed to thrive in the information society. With these prerequisites of computer access and skills taken care of, so the logic goes, people can then use ICTs to do all sorts of things which lead to social inclusion.
If only all social problems were that simple! Education and technology alone cannot be expected to solve the woes of the information age any more than they solved the woes of the industrial and agricultural ages. Deep-rooted social problems such as social exclusion require deep-rooted social solutions - not just the development of online educational content and a convenient technological infrastructure to give everyone the (theoretical) opportunity to access it.
Take the application of ICTs to overcome inequalities in educational participation as a stark example of why ‘technological provision’ plus ‘education’ does not equal ‘inclusion’. Our current research in Cardiff University into ICT and adult learning is showing (as in previous studies) that the ever-increasing levels of ICT access and ‘e-learning’ opportunities are making little, if any, significant impact on reducing the entrenched inequalities in educational participation across the general population.
Now there is, as anyone involved in education will know, a vast amount of ICT-based adult learning taking place. E-learning has undeniably made adult learning more flexible and convenient in terms of time, cost and what is on offer. Initiatives such as UfI and learndirect are, for example, proving to be very effective and efficient methods of providing work-related training to individuals and businesses across the UK. Indeed, we have found in our surveys that many adults are taking part in some form of ‘e-learning’.
Crucially though, these e-learners tend to be established ‘traditional’ learners - adults who were learning before and will be learning in the future. E-learning is certainly increasing levels of adult learning. However, it is not necessarily widening levels of learning to those adults who were not engaging in education beforehand. Although a lot of learning is taking place via ICT it appears, if anything, to be enhancing rather than overcoming existing inequalities in learning.
When we talk to people who are not participating in e-learning the reasons for this are clear. Sure, most people on the ‘wrong’ side of the educational digital divide recognise that they could, in theory, go to a community centre to use a computer for learning. It is acknowledged by some that this would make learning less time consuming or more convenient. Certainly, some people have taken basic computer courses and IT skills classes and are capable of using new technologies if they wish. But many people still do not have the interest, the motivation and crucially the need to take part in learning - ICT based or not.
The same logic applies to doing other ‘socially inclusive’ things via ICT. Although contacting your local MP, shopping for basic food supplies and managing household finances are all made far more immediate via ICTs, unless people have the interest and need to do so it is quite understandable that they will not – even if they have the necessary skills and capabilities. It was not illiteracy or the inconvenience of local polling stations that prevented 41 percent of the adult population from voting at the last general election. It is not the time and cost implications of enrolling on a course which prevents over a third of the adult population from taking part in any learning once having left compulsory schooling.
We should not forget that many people, (i) do not have the need or interest in engaging in many of the more worthy activities we would class as being ‘socially inclusive’ (e.g. learning, voting, having a bank account) and, (ii) already ‘get by’ perfectly well in their everyday lives without personally using ICTs such as the computer or internet. From this perspective, expecting dramatic changes on the back of making educational opportunities accessible through a computer is a nonsense.
One of the more common-sense conclusions from our research is that people tend to only use ICT (if at all) for things which are relevant, useful and/or pleasurable to their lives. ‘Life-fit’ and purpose are key variables almost always overlooked in the digital divide debate. If education was not a big part of someone’s life before an ICT centre was put in their local library it is unlikely to be a large part of their life now.
This slightly pessimistic argument is not made to be wilfully obstructionist or ‘Luddite’. The application of ICTs in education can - and does - play a positive part in many people’s lives. Every educator who uses ICT in their teaching will have first-hand experience of how new technologies can make a tremendous difference to learners’ lives. However, to expect educational technology to make these tremendous differences across the general population is to grossly misunderstand the nature of social exclusion. Ensuring social inequality within the ‘information society’ is largely a social issue which requires a range of social solutions - not technical or educational ‘fixes’.
______
For more information on the Adults Learning@Home research project being carried out in Cardiff School of Social Sciences go to www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/ict
5