7 Chapter 3 – Comparative study on technology inequity between China and US during COVID

Comparative study on technology inequity between China and US during COVID

What is Technology Inequity? 

Over the past few years, technology has become a major tool used in just about every career field and has provided educators with a valuable resource to support teaching and learning (MacCallum, Jeffrey, &Kinshuk,2014). Educational technology (Edtech) represents efforts to design, develop, and use technology to achieve a never-ending array of desirable educational outcomes, including improving learning, increasing retention rates, enhancing teaching effectiveness, reducing costs, and increasing access. Throughout its history, Edtech proponents have assumed positive impacts, promoting optimistic rhetoric despite little empirical evidence of results and ample documentation of failures. Technologically savvy students often have a better chance of getting a job and excelling in their careers (Savage & Brown, 2015).

When used effectively, technology can greatly contribute to creating equity in schools. It removes barriers to learning materials, supports students where they are across varied learning contexts and needs, and gives educators more insight into the learning environments they’re creating (Anderson,2019). However, the task of integrating technology into classroom instruction in a meaningful and state-of-the-art way remains challenging (Pittman & Gaines, 2015). Although classrooms may have access to many technology devices, several external and internal factors affect the proper implementation of technology in some of these classrooms due to biased and unfair policies resulting in a lack of equality in educational performance and outcomes (the desire results in teachers and stakeholders want students to achieve).

These biased or unfair practices could be implicit or explicit. Implicit bias could be an unconscious racial or socioeconomic bias toward students. For instance, Instructors can hold assumptions about students’ learning behaviors and their capability for academic success which are tied to students’ identities and/or backgrounds, and these assumptions can impede student growth (Staats, et.al, 2017). An example could also be how learners engage with a technology product based on how the product was designed. Some factors may also include, low teacher self-efficacy, poor infrastructure, teacher perceptions, effective professional development, lack of sufficient technology, and inadequate technology. Whiles equity is complex and requires addressing multiple dynamics such as socioeconomic, cultural, familial, staffing, linguistic, instructional, and assessment. In this chapter, we will focus on the comparison of access and its impact during the pandemic.

  ^{Image credit: https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3076954/hong-kong-must-address-deeper-digital-inequalities-exposed}

 ^{Illustration: Craig Stephens}

Technology inequity in China during Covid-19 

Technology inequity in the US during Covid-19 

What are the similarities and differences between China and US?

• Political System: In China, there is only one party “the Communist Party of China”. All the provinces must follow the central committee and conduct the same policy. While in US, there are Democratic Party and Republican Party. They have different policies in dealing with the pandemic. In Blue states, students are required to wear masks and take online classes. As the public service is not available during Covid, students who don’t have access to digital devices cannot participate in class. Whereas in red states, students can take in-person classes. They are less affected with digital access problems.
• Government Control: Chinese government is a centralized government. They published the “Disrupted classes, undisrupted learning” policy. Though the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE) provide autonomy to the local government to arrange school activities, it is still the governments to take the responsibility. On contrast, US federal government only have a limited control. Each state has their own policies to deal with the pandemic.
• Social Background: China and US have different social issues.
  • In China there is a unique phenomena called “left-behind children“. Left-behind children refer to children who are left behind in their hometowns or boarding with relatives because one or both parents are working outside the home. It is a serious social phenomenon in China. In the case of left-behind families, the parents need to go out to the city to work to make ends meet, but are unable to take their children because they cannot afford the high cost of living in the city. Lack of enough parental support, these kids need more concern to assist their learning during pandemic.
  • Racial issue is a prominent concern in US. It is comprehensive, systemic and persistent. The minority group is facing with more inequity during pandemic. Black and Hispanic families with school-age children are 1.3 to 1.4 times more likely than white families to have limited access to computers and the Internet, and more than two-fifths of low-income families have limited access to devices. Racial minority group deserve more concern in the US.
• Value: Chinese parents and US parents also hold different value toward students academic performance. Most Chinese parents have high expectation on their children’s academic performance. They value the effort and diligence that students put into the academic tasks. While American parents value children’s overall wellbeing and development. Academic only takes a small part. Therefore, Chinese parents are more actively cooperate with school to support students learning.

What can be done to decrease the gap and increase access?

Technology in education is supposed to create opportunities for all, not just a few and specific groups of people. The National Center for Education Statistics conducted a survey that found only 61 percent of school-aged children had internet access at home, and yet a majority of students reported requiring the internet to complete assignments. Educational Inequity has been an issue in education for a very long time. The United States for instance faces technological segregation based on access, digital literacy, and cultural limitations. These social problems extend into public education, where one can see the beginning of a digital divide as far back as 1905 with the advent of school museums that housed forms of educational technology (Reiser, 2001). When covid -19 took the world by storm, schools had no option but to devise strategies for remote learning amid a lack of equipment, teachers, money, and structures. This exposed further the technology inequity that has existed for years by highlighting the inefficiencies in the current educational system.

According to Global Citizen, there exists a digital divide worldwide, and 40% of rural African American citizens don’t have broadband access at home compared to 23% of white Americans in the same area. The only way to bridge this inequity gap to attain the desired success is through Equity. This section looks into some measures to adopt to remove these disparities. 

1. Develop a Systematic Technology Plan: To build, implement, plan and provide equitable access to technology for students, schools should have a plan. Schools should be encouraged to develop a technology plan which will outline all the learning styles and characteristics of students, allowing leaders to work towards that goal.
2. Liaise schools with local libraries: One simpler and considerably cheaper solution to take advantage of is involving the cooperation of school districts and neighboring communities. Schools could partner with local libraries to facilitate student computer access or even act as technology centers themselves after school hours (Brown et al, 2001). Servon & Nelson (2001) advocate the use of community technology centers that provide a place for those lacking computer access to use the Internet for information and recreational purposes. Currently, two-thirds of all technology centers are located in urban areas, most of them providing programs that improve digital literacy as well as delivering content, such as General Educational Development (GED) programs.
3. Implement and Invest in Digital Tools that are Easily Accessible Offline to Promote Inclusiveness: According to The Tech Edvocate, 40% of students from low-income households were able to access remote learning once a week or less. When tools are easily accessible offline, these students who are at a disadvantage due to lack of internet connectivity will be able to download, read, and do other things even though there is no internet. 

4. Ensuring Access for Digital Learning: When traditional teaching and learning went remote during the pandemic, digital learning became the talk of the day. To ensure digital learning occurs at home, schools and communities must ensure that every student has access to devices and reliable internet. There are many ways to do so, but the district and school leaders should also do what they can to advocate for sustainable digital access for all families. This can be accomplished through:

   • Supporting families to identify free or low-cost internet service.
   • Partnering with local service providers to increase access for families in the providers’ communities.
   • Providing digital learning devices and tools to all families and students who do not have access.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Covid-19 exacerbated an already existing disparity between availability and access to technology. China and the US are two very different countries, with different governments and different resources for dealing with Covid. They also had different availability to educational technology before Covid complicated the situation. The United States is 9th in GDP according to the World Bank. The Unites States Federal Government made decisions during COVID that were often times changed or ignored by individual States. This made dealing with COVID more difficult because there could not be one uniform plan for dealing with providing access to broadband internet, hardware and software the pandemic made necessary. China, on the other hand, is 81st in GDP according to the World Bank, but is the world’s most populous country. This means China is trying to get technology to 4 times as many people as the United States on 1/6th of the financial resources.  Both countries had to deal with getting their students who were now learning remotely, usually from home, access to internet capable devices and an internet connection. Factor in some of the complications families had with connecting unfamiliar hardware with new software, and a lack of IT support, and there were a lot of students missing class time.

In China, TV stations provided “Classrooms on Air” via satellite where cell reception could not reach. With a bad combination of physical distance for some families from the nearest internet or cell connection, a lack of money for those families to pay for these resources even if they are available, and teachers responsible for large areas, 2 out of 10 rural students had no interaction with their teachers. (Li et al., 2020). US families, on the other hand had more resources in their neighborhoods but lacked money to purchase hardware, software or internet access. These families often resorted to public wifi for their children, but even that was an imperfect plan. Less places were open for seating due to COVID, and it meant the student was away from home most of the day. Younger children did not have that option to be left unsupervised for 8 hours a day. Teachers lack of preparedness was an issue for both countries. Teachers were used to teaching in-person with the student in the class. At home, the students were often distracted by other things in the house or on their phone. The style of presentation was also different and took some adjusting. Some teachers would teach a lesson, then set aside time to work individually with the students who needed help or had questions.

Despite online learning being used at the college level for over two decades, online education for K-12 was for most teachers and students, a completely new experience. Technology inequity is a two-fold problem. The first problem is access to the resources in the first place. The second problem is being able to afford these resources. The steps to providing equitable access to educational resources, both online and offline, is a four step process. 1. Develop a Systematic Technology Plan. 2. Liaise schools with local libraries. 3. Implement and Invest in Digital Tools that are Easily Accessible Offline to Promote Inclusiveness 4. Prioritize equity in Learning Initiatives..