Scan barcode
prophecygrrl's review
5.0
Finally an analysis and solution to the so-called digital divide that I can get behind. This book featured prominently in my LIS research proposal and I think there's some great info here for librarians, particularly those with an eye toward social justice issues.
The author’s attempts to create technology training programs in YWCA community of Troy, NY collide with the community’s poor and working class women’s actual experiences with the high tech economy. These experiences and the resulting research challenge the central tenets of digital divide policy and the idea that low-income people are information or technology poor, suggesting that IT policy and digital divide activism assume middle-class values and experiences, obscuring and invalidating the insights and experiences of poor and working-class people. A fundamental lack of understanding on the part of liberal policy makers on issues of poverty, racial and gender inequity, social location and cultural capital means that technology equity initiatives tend to only address issues of access and distribution.
The author’s attempts to create technology training programs in YWCA community of Troy, NY collide with the community’s poor and working class women’s actual experiences with the high tech economy. These experiences and the resulting research challenge the central tenets of digital divide policy and the idea that low-income people are information or technology poor, suggesting that IT policy and digital divide activism assume middle-class values and experiences, obscuring and invalidating the insights and experiences of poor and working-class people. A fundamental lack of understanding on the part of liberal policy makers on issues of poverty, racial and gender inequity, social location and cultural capital means that technology equity initiatives tend to only address issues of access and distribution.
wskent's review against another edition
4.0
Amazing philosophy. Great anecdotes. Still written like an academic paper, but the ideas alone are enough to carry this book onto anyone's to-read list.
More...