In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, social distancing directives across the United States have led to school closures. Many K-12 school districts have moved toward online instruction, but not every student has access to the Internet. A new study examined the factors that determine whether children and youth can participate in distance learning.
Conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the working paper appears on SSRN – an online database for specialized research networks to rapidly disseminate new research.
The study found that low-income and non-white children and youth have less access to the internet than their peers, as do children and youth who live in areas where low-income and non-white children score lower on math tests.
Source: “Social Distancing and School Closures: Documenting Disparity in Internet Access among School Children (April 2020; via SSRN) 10.2139/ssrn.3572922
The study used data from the 2018 American Community Survey, which is administered by the Census Bureau and examines about three million households. The survey looked at students in grades one through 12 to record the level of internet access in their households by type (e.g., high-speed, dial-up, satellite), as well as whether the households received food stamps. The survey also recorded students’ age, race, disability status, and the type of housing in which they lived. Researchers also examined results of students’ 2018 math tests in the districts that were part of the American Community Survey; these results are believed to predict future income.
According to the study, 77% of students surveyed had access to high-speed internet and 5.5% had no internet access at all. The main form of internet access was via cellular connection, which the authors suggest may be less than satisfactory for schoolwork because it is expensive for high-intensity internet use like video conferencing and has limits on how much it can be used to tether devices.
In analyzing the findings, researchers concluded that both poverty and race affect children and youth’s access to the internet. For instance, the study found 21% of students live in households that receive food stamps, and these students are 16% less likely to have access to high-speed internet and 10% less likely to have access to internet at all. Households without kitchen facilities are 30% less likely to have access to high-speed internet.
African American children and youth are 8% less likely to have access to high-speed internet and 4% more likely to have no internet access. Across the study, children of races other than white or Asian, or multi-racial children, were less likely to have access to the internet.
The study’s findings suggest that districts’ shift to online instruction may harm students who are already experiencing disadvantages. Even in areas where a greater number of people have access to the internet in general, a persistent gap in internet access remains for children and youth who are African American, of Hispanic ethnicity, are low income, lack adequate housing, or participate in English as Second Language (ESL) programs.
The only exception researchers found was in some areas where private firms have historically focused on internet access, communication, and technology. In areas with a large presence of technology jobs that use broadband internet, there are also positive spillovers to disadvantaged children and youth in terms of increasing their relative likelihood of having access to high-speech internet, the study found.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
From the FDLP/GPO: The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern has responded to the Feasibility of a Digital Federal Depository Library Program: Report of the GPO Director’s ...
From the Associated Press: An effort to digitize more than 200 Boston Pops radio broadcasts conducted by John Williams from 1979 until 1991 is almost complete, the Boston Symphony Orchestra ...
UPDATE (Feb. 8): We’ve added a link to a statement by the Louisiana Library Association at the bottom of this post. From the Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Louisiana Attorney General Jeff ...
Association of American Publishers (AAP) Announces Finalists And Category Winners For 2023 PROSE Awards Microsoft Will Let Companies Create Their Own Custom Versions of ChatGPT, Source Says (via CNBC) National ...
From a Letter by Ithaka President Kevin Guthrie: I recently shared the 2023 priorities ITHAKA has set to help provide the infrastructure the academic community needs to support research, teaching, and learning ...
Here’s the Full Text of HathiTrust Announcement: HathiTrust, a member-based organization hosted by the University of Michigan, has received a 5-year, $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to fund ...
From UMass Amherst Libraries (Full Text): The University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries are pleased to announce the publication of The UMass Amherst Libraries Falcon Curriculum: An Open Source, Common Core PreK-12 ...
From the Annenberg School of Communications/U. of Pennsylvania: In a new report, “Americans Can’t Consent to Companies’ Use of Their Data,” researchers asked a nationally representative group of more than ...
From Fast Company: More than 50% of academics have used piracy websites like Sci-Hub in order to bypass paywalls for research they want to access, according to a recent study published in ...
AI Models Spit Out Photos of Real People and Copyrighted Images (via MIT Technology Review) California: Orange Unified School District Reinstates Digital Library After Parent Concerns (via Voice of OC) ...
The article linked below (full-text) was recently published Reference Services Review. Title Libraries Advancing Health Equity: A Literature Review Authors Amanda J. Wilson National Library of Medicine Catherine Staley National ...
From the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board: Anyone who has spent time on a bookmobile has learned enough to know nothing withstands the change of time. Still, we lament the slow ...