August 18, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The benefits that information technology offer to young people are undermined by continuing disparities in children’s access to computers and the Internet based on their race and ethnicity, as well as their family’s income, according to a new report by a children’s advocacy organization.
Yet when children from low-income families do have access to information technology, the report says, they use it to pursue additional opportunities at higher rates than their counterparts from wealthier families.
The report. “Measuring Opportunity for America’s Children,” was produced by the Children’s Partnership, an organization in Santa Monica, Calif.
In 2003 more than three-quarters of American children ages 7 to 17 lived in households with a personal computer, and 68 percent lived in households with access to the Internet.
But household income makes a big difference in who has access and who does not.
Of children who live in households where the annual income is less than $15,000, 45 percent have access to a home computer and 29 percent have access to the Internet.
That is in stark contrast to children who live in households with annual incomes of more than $75,000, of whom 96 percent have access to a home computer and 93 percent have access to the Internet.
Based on a review of research on children and technology and an analysis of survey data from government agencies and nonprofit research organizations, the report looks at how information technology is affecting — or has the potential to affect — young people’s educational achievement, health, readiness to hold a job, and civic engagement.
The researchers found that children in groups with lower percentages of computer ownership and Internet access at home were at a disadvantage.
For example, among parents who had children ages 12 to 17, 9 percent in households with an annual income of less than $30,000 used e-mail to communicate with their child’s teacher, compared with 33 percent in households with an annual income of $50,000 or more.
The report, however, found that those young people from families with annual incomes of less than $30,000 downloaded study aids at a higher rate — 43 percent compared to 36 percent — than their counterparts from households earning $50,000 or more.
Adolescents from the lower-income households were also more likely to visit Web sites or bulletin boards where they could express opinions on issues they care about than were youngsters from higher-earning families, again at a rate of 43 percent versus 36 percent.
To read a copy of this report: Go to http://www.contentbank.org/doms.
