BUILDING FUTURES > THE NEED FOR YOUTH TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

The Need for Youth Technology Education Programs         

According to a report conducted by The Children’s Partnership, entitled “Measuring Digital Opportunity for America's Children: Where We Stand and Where We Go from Here”, (Lazarus & Wainer, 2005), the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has the potential to produce important and measurable impacts in four areas that matter to children:

1.  Improved Health – “There is strong evidence that ICT can be an effective way to keep parents, patients, and doctors in closer communication; a cost-effective means to manage chronic health problems common among children, such as asthma; and a resource offering teenagers and young adults a safe way to learn about sensitive subjects like birth control, pregnancy, and AIDS that has been shown to lead young people to make better choices about healthy behavior.”

2.  Educational Achievement – “Various studies have documented that appropriate use of technology in an educational context can help students achieve better grades, increase scores on standardized tests, increase school attendance, and improve school behavior. There is also early evidence that technology can have a particularly significant impact on improved academic performance among students with lower grades or from low-income or rural backgrounds.”

3.  Economic Opportunity – “Young people with well-developed digital media skills can benefit from their skills in two ways: (1) they are prepared for better jobs, and (2) they can more easily use their skills to search, apply for, and obtain jobs. As greater numbers of workplaces incorporate computers and the Internet in their everyday work, young people’s ability to use these tools means they have better job opportunities. Early evidence suggests that teaching at-risk youth marketable ICT skills (such as word processing, Web design, desktop publishing or video production) helps them get jobs, resume their education, and see a productive path to adulthood. Similarly, use of the Web to post and find jobs means that youth proficient in searching for jobs online will be more competitive in the job market.”

4.  Community and Civic Participation – “There is a growing “youth civic culture” on the Web with thousands of sites offering a variety of ways for young people to become involved in their local communities or communicate with others who share their interests. ICT appears to hold considerable promise to increase community involvement by offering young people a new forum in which to state their views on community issues; get connected to a local youth organization; or transact business with government—whether to get a work permit, apply for a driver’s license, or apply for college financial aid.”

“Although Information and Communication Technology is showing the potential to produce measurable impacts in these four areas, research shows there is a ‘digital opportunity gap’ confronting low-income and ethnic minority children.”

IMPROVED HEALTH

• The rate at which Asian American and White young adults ages 18–25 use the Internet to search for health information (23% and 22%) is almost double that of Native Americans, African Americans, and Latinos (13%, 12%, and 11% respectively), even though these ethnic minorities have disproportionate prevalence of certain conditions like AIDS and hypertension.

EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT

• Very substantial disparities are seen along income and racial lines among young adults who use spreadsheet or database computer programs at home.

• The parents of children from low-income households use e-mail to communicate with their children’s teachers one-third as frequently as parents from higher-income households.

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

• Some of the most pronounced disparities along income and ethnic group lines are evident in the extent to which young people use at home computer applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, and graphics programs that can make them more marketable when they enter the labor force.

• Children ages 7–17 living in households earning more than $75,000 annually are more than three times as likely to use a home computer for word processing or desktop publishing as children in homes with an income of less than $15,000 annually (57% versus 17%); and

• White and Asian American children ages 7–17 are much more likely to use a home computer for word processing or desktop publishing (45% and 41%) than are Latino (23%), African American (22%) or Native American (21%) children.

COMMUNITY AND CIVIC PARTICIPATION

• 20% of young adults from households earning $75,000 or more annually download and submit government forms online compared to 11% of those from households earning less than $15,000 annually; and

• Similar disparities exist according to race and ethnicity.

THE GOOD NEWS…This study indicates that when access and training is available to low-income children, they do use technology in ways that enhance their opportunities.

• Lower-income online youth are downloading study guides more frequently than their higher-income counterparts (43% compared to 36%);

• Young adults who identified themselves as “lower class” are slightly more likely than others to visit a doctor or clinic because of information they obtain online (17% compared to 14%); and

• Those young people living in lower-income online households are also slightly more likely to visit Web sites or bulletin boards where they can express their opinion about things than those in higher income online households (43% compared to 36%).