Economic Development and Technology-Skill Needs

Abstract

Economic Development and Technology-Skill Needs on American Indian Reservations William Brescia Tony Daily Assessing the Digital Divide Over the past two decades, information technology has quickly and continuously revolutionized society. In the early 1990s Internet use was minimal nationwide and almost nonexistent in reservation communities. Nationally, Internet connectivity is now almost commonplace.1 As with other technological innovations, American society has become dependent upon information technologies (it). The Internet provides users with beneficial opportunities, such as online job searches and the possibility of continuing education via online courses. In commerce and industry Internet use is an important part of doing business. As literacy in and access to information technology is quickly becoming essential to participation in the new technology-based economy, the existence of an informational divide that reflects the socioeconomic situation of users and nonusers or the "information rich" versus the "information poor" is a growing concern. Within the context of American culture, this divide holds a specific relevance, as it also revolves around issues of race and its inherent interrelations to social class in our economy. Early claims that economic stratification is a major factor in determining the "digital divide" were well founded. As shown by The Center for Comparative Studies at Stanford University, there is indeed a tremendous economic divergence in the United States existing along racial divides (see figure 1). Divergence in poverty rates existing along racial lines in the United States fosters concerns about the equal distribution of technology. As also seen in figure 1, American Indians are among the most economically disadvantaged citizens in the United States, closely followed by African Americans and Hispanic Americans.2 [End Page 23] There are opposing opinions about the importance of the digital divide. Some researchers believe the digital divide should be a societal concern, while others take the position that it takes too much attention away from more serious issues.3 Stratification of wealth and the lack of affordability of information technology aid in substantiating the existence of the divide. Click for larger view Figure 1 Poverty rates of seven subsections of the U.S. population. Washington dc: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001. Benjamin Compaine has denied the importance of the digital divide by claiming it is an argument that is no longer relevant. Compaine's book The Digital Divide: Facing Crisis or Myth? is a compilation of essays strategically aimed at refuting concerns over the divide. Scholars such as Compaine contend that as technology becomes increasingly cheaper, familial income ceases to be relevant, because even those living in what is considered poverty can afford a machine capable of giving them the same informational access available to those more economically privileged. This theory is sometimes referred to as "information creep." In Internet and Society: A Preliminary Report, Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society (siqss), Norman Nie and Lutz Ebring suggest that race and gender do not contribute to the digital divide. They do not, however, speak to the fact that an educational divergence exists in America along racial lines, further stratifying accessibility rates in regard to education. As opposed to caucasians (8.2 percent), twice as many blacks (16.3 percent) and four times as many Hispanics (32.3 percent) were high school dropouts.4 Nie and Ebring do acknowledge in the accompanying text to the study that there is a 17 percent racial [End Page 24] divergence in accessibility rates; however, this fact is not reflected in their data. An additional, confounding element to the siqss study is that it was an Internet-based study. The format and limited participation are contributing factors to the unreliability of its data. Nie and Ebring claim that the decreasing prices of technologies that allow informational access also help close certain racially prescribed digital divides. With the knowledge of how other technologies (such as television and the telephone) have diffused through American culture, it is certain that the gap between the "technologically rich" and the "technologically poor" widens upon a...