cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Fibonacci Blue
I read this extremely interesting paper on New Millenium Learners and was fascinated by the following quote regarding the “Matthew Effect“:
It can be reasonably expected that those who are already in possession of good cultural capital will find in their technology-related practices a way to reinforce it, while those who either do not have access to technology or lack sound cultural capital will lag behind. In the long run, the existing differences between those who have and those who don’t have the right cultural capital to take advantage of the potential of technologies will increase. Hence the Mathew effect: those who benefit from a better socio-economic environment find it easier to benefit from technologies, thanks to the cultural capital transferred to them, and they thus increase their advantage and privileged situation in comparison to those who lack such an accompanying capital. In other words, if no compensatory policies and practices are in place, granting access to technology to children from socioeconomic deprived contexts may look like a good step in breaking the technology gap, as it was originally defined, in terms of access. However, a second digital gap is now emerging. To bridge it requires a new set of educational policies and practices, as they are related to technology practices associated with cultural capital.
I would really encourage you to read the entire paper as there is some really interesting information.
In short, the “Matthew Effect” could be summarized in the statement, “the rich get rich, and the poor get poorer“. I have thought about this a lot in our own practices as we look to continuously open up WiFi in our schools to allow students to bring in their own personal devices to leverage them for learning. Many would argue that doing something like this would only emphasize the distinction between rich and poor. The reality of many of these situations though is that students that have the ability to bring the device into school, probably would already benefit from having the technology in the home already. This is also suggested in the “New Millenium Learners” paper:
“…students who do not have access to a computer at home tend to be lower achievers than the others and, secondly, it would also seem to be the case that students using computers at home less often had below-average results.”
If we are to break this cycle, I believe it is essential that we either:
- Provide all of our students with technology in schools, similar to many 1-1 programs or…
- Open up our school networks and ensure that we provide for students that do not have access to the technology.
We know that many careers will need some expertise using technology either in the job, and in many cases, to get the job in the first place.
What are some ways that we can help break this cycle so our students that struggle now can thrive in the future? I hope that we can share some thoughts and ideas on this.
