Digital equality requires more than access

Conversations about digital inequality in education often revolve around access to technology. However, research into youth culture has shown that many Black and Latinx teens are able to access technology and have developed the same digital skills as their white peers. Social scientist Matt Rafalow observed three California middle schools where students had similar levels of access to digital technologies despite being from different racial and class backgrounds and found that teachers perceived students' technological abilities differently. Wealthy white students' digital play was seen as essential to learning, while Asian American and Latinx students' skills were seen as either a threat to their learning or irrelevant to it. Addressing digital inequality will require schools to also address the racial and class prejudice that leads teachers to view students' abilities differently.