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Abstract
Interviews with 52 parents of varying income levels and positions on the digital “access rainbow” are used to explore how parents discuss the widespread belief that ICT (information and communication technologies) access affects their children's prospects for success. While all parents agreed that ICT competence is important, differences emerged along socioeconomic lines regarding how parents conceptualized the computer/success relationship. While upper-income parents demonstrated greater ICT proficiency and access and assumed that their children needed ICT proficiency for success, parents in the lower-income groups saw the need for ICT proficiency as more context-dependent and adopted broader definitions of success. All parents expressed concerns about the negative attributes of ICTs as entertainment rather than educational media; for lower- and middle-income families, however, this objection justified limits on use or access among children.
Notes
1. The co-authors were members of a large research team at the University of Colorado's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. This larger team participated in interviewing, transcribing, and analyzing transcripts. In addition to the co-authors, research team members included Stewart Hoover, Joseph Champ, AnnaMaria Russo, Denice Walker, Michelle Miles, Monica Emerich, Jin Park, and Curtis Coats. We use the term “family group” rather than simply “family” to indicate that our interviews included people who lived together in the same household most of the time. Thus, we interviewed not only those who lived in a single household and were part of a nuclear family of blood relatives—we also interviewed family groups of multiple generations as well as groups that included children, a single parent, and an unmarried partner. In general, we did not interview parents removed from other members of the family due to divorce or separation.
2. In general, children echoed their parents’ perspectives on the importance of computers in relation to their future prospects, although in many cases children exhibited greater familiarity and comfort with ICTs than their parents did.
3. We refer to the families with incomes below $25,000 as lower-income, those above $42,200 as upper-income, and those between $25,000 and $42,000 as middle-income, although this group does represent income that is slightly below the national average. Family groups were evenly divided into these categories, with incomes ranging from less than $15,000 a year to more than $200,000 a year.
4. Hyman, it is worth noting, placed responsibility for success squarely on the individual and his or her “choices” as opposed to structural or systemic societal issues, thus echoing the “ideology” he aimed to critique.
5. The co-authors presented ongoing analyses to the larger research team for feedback, thus triangulating analysis.