ABSTRACT
ACCESS TO TECHNOLOGY IS SEEN as one of the major factors in dividing world economies, as well as factions of groups within individual societies. Keegan (2000) noted that there is no single digital divide but lots of overlapping ones: between old and young, men and women, rich and poor, blacks and whites, northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere, and above all, between developed and developing nations. Issues of economic disparity have been major contributors to the “digital divide” among nations and people. A 2002 study conducted by the US Department of Commerce’s Economic and Statistics Administration and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, reported that there was a significant educational inequity in access to computers and the internet (Cooper et al. 2002). In the United States, blacks and Hispanics had half as much ownership of home computers as their white counterparts. It was further noted that schools whose student body is primarily represented by minority or economically disadvantaged students have one-third to three times less access to these technologies than do schools attended primarily by white or non-disadvantaged students. If school systems attracting these students have relatively low accessibility, disadvantaged students will not be able to compensate for less access in their homes.
