Differences among Urban, Suburban, and Rural Schools on Technology Access and Use in Eighth-Grade Mathematics Classrooms

Abstract

One of the potential dangers related to technology occurs when technology access and use are not equitably distributed. This study examined the access and use of technology in urban, suburban, and rural schools by using teacher survey data from the eighth-grade cohort of the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988 (NELS:88). The subjects were 3,825 eighth-grade mathematics teachers who answered questions on the extent to which students had access to technology and how they were using it in their mathematics class. The results indicated that there were several significant differences on technology use by type of school setting. Teachers from suburban schools were more likely to report using calculators than teachers from urban and rural schools. Teachers from rural schools reported that they were less likely to use calculators and computers than teachers from suburban and urban schools. Finally, teachers from rural and suburban schools were more likely to report that their students used computers for enrichment purposes, while urban teachers were more likely to report that computers in their schools were used for remediation.