The Digital Identity Divide: How Technology Knowledge Impacts College Students By Joanna Goode

The Digital Identity Divide: How Technology Knowledge Impacts College Students

By Joanna Goode- May 2010

This article discussed the tech divide between college students, and how it affected their lives once they got to university. Goode compares schools in more affluent areas, with students whose families have higher incomes, to schools in less affluent areas with students whose families have lower incomes. At the very beginning of the article, Goode states that she believes that high schools are not adequately preparing students for the technology they will need to use when they get to college. Goode’s article discusses the technology divide by giving examples through interviews with three students who had very different experiences with technology--their “technology identification.” Their technology identifications were influenced by their home experience as well as their school experience.

The claim Goode is making in this article is that the technological identity people perceive they have is affected by their home and school lives. It affects their further education; lower self esteem with regards to their technology identity can cause people to switch their idea of what they want to do with their lives. When Goode wrote this article, it was a month after the release of the first iPad. The iPad was new crazy technology that everyone wanted but only a few could afford, at $500 for the least expensive version. This factor could have influence Goode’s article. This was a piece of technology that only middle to high income families could afford. Lower income families might not have the chance to use the iPad, which could cause a bigger technological divide.  

This article was published in New Media & Society in May 2010. This journal is a “top-ranked, peer-reviewed, international journal,” which publishes research dealing with all areas of media from communication to the humanities. Because it is peer-reviewed and has scholarly research, the audience for this article is most likely composed of scholars and other academics. This audience would most likely be on the higher end for their technology identity. Professors, as part of the intended audience, could learn a lot from this article that would help their students. Instructors of students may attain a better understanding that not all students come into an institution with the same technological knowledge.

Dr. Joanna Goode is an Assistant Professor in the department of Teacher Education at the University of Oregon. Dr. Goode’s research is based on looking at underrepresented students of color and females in computer science. The article we read this week fits in perfectly with her ongoing research by looking at students of color and their technology identities. Because of all of her research on the topic of unrepresented people within computer sciences, she is an authority to talk about the technological divide, especially in education.

The only references I found to Dr. Goode’s article were a lot of class blog posts like ours. I found the article cited many times on other blogs for different universities’ classes. On these blogs, there seemed to be a very positive reaction and reinforcement of the article.

Joanna Goode, "The digital identity divide: How technology knowledge impacts college students," New Media & Society 12:3 (2010), pp. 497-513.