 number of white supremacy Web sites and a more intense sense of fear and vulnerability among these groups (along with Native Americans) related to the availability of personal information online.
Ultimately, the traditional understanding of the digital divide as gaps in rates of physical access to computers and the Internet fails to capture the full picture of the divide, its stronghold, and its educational, social, cultural, and economic ramifications. Meanwhile, such a narrow conceptualization of the divide serves the interests of privileged groups who can continue to critique access rates instead of thinking critically and reflectively about their personal and collective roles in cycling and recycling old inequities in a new cyber-form.
A new understanding of the digital divide is needed--one that provides adequate context and begins with a dedication to equity and social justice throughout education. Multicultural education--a field that enters every discussion about education with this dedication--offers an important, desperately needed framework for such an understanding. It is from that framework that I have crafted the following statement about understanding and eliminating the digital divide.
A multicultural education approach to understanding and eliminating the digital divide:
As information technology becomes more and more interwoven with all aspects of life and well-being in the United States, it becomes equally urgent to employ the complexities and critiques of multicultural education theory and practice to the problem of the digital divide. It is the next--the present--equity issue in schools and larger society with enormous social justice implications. This reframing of the digital divide can serve as a starting point for more active participation in digital divide research and action within the field of multicultural education.
Additionally, this conceptual piece should challenge those currently studying or working to eliminate the divide in all contexts to broaden and deepen their understandings of equity. It is crucial to recognize that the effort to eliminate the divide, while a clearly identifiable problem unto itself, must be understood as one part--albeit an immensely important one--of a larger effort toward eliminating the continuing and intensifying inequity in every aspect of education and society.
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