Educational Equity and Diversity with Emerging Technologies

Technology is important in education and is now observed to have become an essential part of the educational process. Technological advances have exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor, maintaining and exaggerating inequities in education. Educational equity aims to provide equal opportunity to all students regardless of gender, ethnicity, social class, or race to reach their full academic and social potential. With the proliferation of emerging technologies in education, there needs to be equitable access and equitable usage of technology. According to Field, Kuczera, and Pont?(2007), educational equity is two-dimensional. The first dimension is fairness, which implies ensuring that personal and social circumstances such as gender, socioeconomic status, or ethnic origin should not be an obstacle to achieving educational potential while the second dimension is inclusion which implies ensuring a basic minimum standard of education for all. A fair and inclusive education is desirable because the long-term social and financial costs of educational failure are high and there is a human rights imperative for people to be able to develop their capacities and participate fully in society (Ainscow, 2012). A fundamental challenge for policymakers and practitioners is to find ways of breaking the links between disadvantage, educational failure, and restricted life chances (Ainscow, 2012).

A proposed solution is to ensure a more proportionate distribution of funding and resources to urban and inner-city schools which are typically more understaffed, underequipped, and underperforming (Alhashem, 2012). This would allow for increased access to educational technology that meets the needs of the diverse student population, thereby improving academic achievements. Schools can increase the number of need-based scholarships to students, offer tutoring sessions, and courses in English as a second language thereby operationalizing the ideals of equity of access. Cultural intelligence and diversity training can also be included for faculty and staff of educational institutions. Equity aims at achieving equal opportunities for all marginalized groups even if it means the unequal provision of access and goods.?

Another challenge to educational equity and diversity exacerbated by access to emerging technologies is that of maintaining a connection to the local environment. Online learning transports learners to another time and space, yet it also places greater value upon learning about things at a distance while potentially overlooking the people, places, and events that one might discover in one's own local area. It is a challenge for educators to ensure that the integration of networked technology allows equal emphasis on people, places, and events both near and far. A proposed solution is to ensure students are well grounded in the knowledge of their local environment and then reinforce this knowledge through educational technology. This approach is supported by Burniske (2005) in his paper where some students in Brazil were asked to undertake scavenger hunts in small groups, then give brief presentations about where they found each life form. The students then conducted online research about the life forms, thereby giving the students a background on their immediate natural surroundings before asking students to turn on a computer and access the internet. In this way, learning about nature locally is preserved while still introducing technology to the classroom.

In summary, technology remains an important tool in modern-day education. However, only proper utilization and distribution ensure equitable and positive outcomes in improving the learning experience for all students.

References

Ainscow, M. (2012). Moving knowledge around: strategies for fostering equity within educational systems. Journal of educational change, 13(3), 289-310.

Alhashem, F. (2012). What Motivates Science Teachers to Teach in Urban Settings A Mixed Method Approach (Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University). Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.15081

Burniske, R. W. (2005). Sharing the sacred fire: Integrating educational technology without annihilating nature. TechTrends, 49(6), 50-52.

Field, S., M. Kuczera and B. Pont?(2007),?No More Failures: Ten Steps to Equity in Education, Education and Training Policy, OECD Publishing, Paris.