The term digital inclusion has been used to articulate the policy, research and practical efforts to look beyond issues of access to computers and the Internet and toward a more robust understanding of the skills, content and services needed to support individuals, families and communities in their abilities to truly adopt computers and the internet. Presently, the deep penetration of digital technologies into the fabric of society have boosted growth, expand opportunities and improved service delivery, resulting in a high level of connectivity between people, businesses and governments. This present review examines the theoretical and conceptual foundations of digital inclusion in light of developmental realities in Nigeria. Specifically, this review considers the framework for inquiry into the technological divide, the new psychological model of e-adoption within the context of the digital divide, the three-step path to engaging with the internet, and a model of digital literacy. The review also considers key conceptual definitions of digital inclusion, the stages of digital inclusion, and approaches to measuring digital inclusion. The implication of digital inclusion for mathematics education students and the Nigerian economy was also discussed. ; Chapter Six of Book of Readings in Honour of Professor Nicodemus Ochani Agbulu (Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academics, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria).
The current global scenario of hyper-connectivity, technology change, and social change make it necessary to rethink the vision and methods employed by governments, development agencies and the private sector to impulse socioeconomic development through the adoption and application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). We pose that the availability of computing and telecommunications infrastructure, highly converging devices for Internet access and content suited to the population needs and idiosyncrasies are not enough to accomplish long-term socio-economic development. The method employed in this contribution is focused on the principles of complex adaptive systems. The objective is to develop an operational framework to support the planning and design of digital inclusion projects integrally. The proposed framework emerges from the application of two complexity perspectives: Organized Complexity and Post-Normal Science. We argue that it is key to study the interplay of innovation, development, and ICT for each particular context to acquire deeper insights and understanding of the elements, both human and technological, affecting the dynamics and long term sustainability of digital inclusion initiatives, particularly in the era of Artificial Intelligence and related emergent technologies. ; Abramson, B. D., 2006. Word matters: Multicultural perspectives on information societies‐by Alain Ambrosi, Valérie Peugeot, & Daniel Pimienta. Journal of Communication, 56(3), 627-628. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460- 2466.2006.00305.x Armenta, A., et. al, R., 2012. The new digital divide: the confluence of broadband penetration, sustainable development, technology adoption and community participation. Information Technology for Development, 18(4), 345–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2011.625925 Chib, A., and Harris, R. W., 2012. Linking research to practice: Strengthening ICT for development research capacity in Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Singapore. Funtowicz, S. and Ravetz, J., 2003. Post-Normal Science. International Society for Ecological Economics Internet Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics. García, R., 2006. Sistemas complejos. Gedisa. Barcelona. International Bahá'í Community, 1998. Valuing Spirituality in Development (Bahá'í ́Pub. Trust). London. International Telecommunications Union, 2017. Measuring the information society report. UIT. Geneva. James, J., 2004. The internet and rural development: Elements of a new paradigm. International Journal of Development Issues, 3(1), 93–108. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045841 Schumacher, E. F., 2011. Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered. Random House. Serrano-Santoyo, A., & Martínez-Martínez, E., 2003. La brecha digital: mitos y realidades. UABC. Ensenada, Mexico Servon, L. J., 2008. Bridging the digital divide: Technology, community and public policy. John Wiley & Sons. Warschauer, M., 2004. Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. MIT press. ; http://www.iadisportal.org/digital-library/the-interplay-of-innovation-ict-and-development-the-future-of-digital-inclusion-a-complexity-perspective
Chapter Six of Book of Readings in Honour of Professor Nicodemus Ochani Agbulu (Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academics, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria). ; International audience ; The term digital inclusion has been used to articulate the policy, research and practical efforts to look beyond issues of access to computers and the Internet and toward a more robust understanding of the skills, content and services needed to support individuals, families and communities in their abilities to truly adopt computers and the internet. Presently, the deep penetration of digital technologies into the fabric of society have boosted growth, expand opportunities and improved service delivery, resulting in a high level of connectivity between people, businesses and governments. This present review examines the theoretical and conceptual foundations of digital inclusion in light of developmental realities in Nigeria. Specifically, this review considers the framework for inquiry into the technological divide, the new psychological model of e-adoption within the context of the digital divide, the three-step path to engaging with the internet, and a model of digital literacy. The review also considers key conceptual definitions of digital inclusion, the stages of digital inclusion, and approaches to measuring digital inclusion. The implication of digital inclusion for mathematics education students and the Nigerian economy was also discussed.
We investigate digital citizenship by exploring attitudes and experiences of digital inclusion and eHealth with data from a survey study based on face-to-face interviews in different languages, in a marginalised hard to survey neighbourhood. Through public eHealth services, people can exercise digital citizenship. We explore differences between the marginalised neighborhood and the national level, and among residents in the neighbourhood, with disaggregated data. The results show that the respondents in Skäggetorp report lower usage of the internet, lower access to smartphones, a somewhat lower usage of BankID, higher concern for surveillance, and a higher number of respondents feel excluded from digital society in comparison to the nationwide survey. The results in the disaggregated data show some differences in attitudes to and experience of digital inclusion among residents in Skäggetorp. We conclude that the studies of digital citizenship need to be broadened to address feeling included, social rights, and difference.
This paper draws upon the capability approach and critical pedagogy to analyse the value of using Problem-posing Education, a participatory action research method, in a digital inclusion initiative in Brazil. First it the capability approach and explains why using critical pedagogy is a valuable way to deal with issues of power, collective conscientisation and adaptive preference. Freire's pedagogy is then presented and conscientisation is explained as a process of raising critical awareness and praxis. The case study, presents empirical work conducted in Campinas, together with a NGO named CDI, which offers free internet access and basic ICT skills using a Freire's inspired methodology. Findings are then explained and discussed using the theoretical framework. This paper concludes that there is great value in using Freire's critical pedagogy for digital inclusion, but that further research is necessary to identify less resource intense solutions that can provide students with both conscientisation and skills.
Educational inclusion for refugees is increasingly being framed through digital technologies. This is problematically characterised at the macro level by global and national narratives that portray the digital as an external and universal force capable of radical transformation and inclusion, and at the micro level with more nuanced accounts that acknowledge an already‐present political economy of technology of everyday practices of (non)adoption and use. Particularly for refugees, inclusion is further characterised by a persistent liminality with its attendant experiences of transition and tentativeness. Digital inclusion becomes an ongoing act of managing these liminal experiences, noting where barriers exist that stall efforts at further assimilation, and developing practices or workarounds that attempt to move refugees away from the margins of social inclusion. Such management is inherently precarious, and one made even more precarious in digital spaces, where inclusion is increasingly intertwined with systems of control and surveillance. To illustrate this, this article presents findings from a project exploring educational participation by refugee students in Ugandan universities. It notes the subtle tensions that emerge from the expectations of participation in university life, and Ugandan life more broadly, amidst digital structures and narratives that complicate inclusion. In this article, we argue that more nuanced conceptualisations of digital inclusion, ones rooted in liminal experiences, are needed to anchor digital technologies in refugee communities.
The main goal of this article is to analyze young people's technological socialization experiences to build a comprehensive model of the distinctive digital literacies interwoven with their biographies. Considering that digital accessibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for inclusion, we identify which types of digital literacies are linked to the acquisition of digital competencies, confidence, and dispositions towards the incorporation of ICTs into daily activities; on the other hand, we also identify digital literacies that might engender motivated processes of self-exclusion from the digital realm, therefore reinforcing subjects' digital exclusion. Methodologically, this article is based on 30 in-depth biographically-oriented qualitative interviews with young people living in the region of Madrid, Spain. Regarding results, four techno-social dimensions are proposed—motivation, degree of formality, degree of sociality, and type of technological domestication—to construct a typology of four ideal forms of digital literacy: unconscious literacy, self-motivated literacy, professional literacy, and social support. To achieve digital inclusion, self-motivation towards using digital technologies is mandatory, but social practices, academic and professional literacy might work as a secondary socialization process that enhance subjects' affinity with ICTs. Nevertheless, the effect of social support is ambivalent: It could promote digital inclusion among people already interested in digital technologies, but it could also lead to dynamics of self-exclusion among people who are not confident regarding their digital competencies or disinterested in ICTs.
Digital inclusion programs contribute to promote a revolution regarding Internet access. WEB 2.0 platform democratization of access is increasing the opportunities to build digital citizenship. In Brazil one of the most important initiatives is AcessaSP Digital Inclusion Program, awarded in 2013 by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a kind of digital inclusion Nobel, that recognizes innovative efforts worldwide to connect people. AcessaSP is a digital inclusion program, which is now 15 years old and already reached 80 million users in almost 850 infocenters in operation, developed by São Paulo state government in partnership with Research Center for New Communications Technologies Applied to Education – School of the Future / USP. This paper presents AcessaSP and discusses some results concerning connected aged populations practices as users of AcessaSP infocenters. The study was carried out as a comparative survey with statistical data collected in 2008, 2009 and 2012 based on a SPSS database originally developed to provide AcessaSP program with statistical data. Main results point an exponential participation in social networks and significant appropriation of WEB 2.0 tools, suggesting aged population empowerment.
We live in a world where we are constantly connected to devices (e.g., smartphones, computers, tablets) and are encouraged to go online to find information about most things in society. This constant digital connection provides the means whereby many individuals communicate and exchange social support. For most demographic groups, this results in being online and connected to devices multiple times each day. Older adults have been slower to adopt and use emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs). Their digital divide in comparison to other age groups may not be an accurate representation of their technology use and the reasons for this use. This descriptive study examines this view of digital inclusion by focusing on older adults and their uses of technology. We provide an overview of technology usage by different older adult age groups in the United States using existing national‐level data. We utilize life course and aging theoretical perspectives to help articulate how older adults use a wide variety of ICTs and whether they are constantly connected, and we note that while a constant connection to devices may be normative for younger age groups, this may not, and perhaps should not, be the case for older adults. The article concludes with a discussion of the social construction of digital inclusion and emphasizes the significant variation that exists in this construct, measurement of technology use in large‐scale datasets, and variation in technology use across older adult life course groups.
Considering that there is a political-digital movement of globalization of which Brazil makes part and for which access to English knowledge is demanded, this paper discusses the theme of social/digital inclusion as an effect of a formal education in English at university level in Brazil. With the understanding that digital and social inclusions can be facets of one same process, a third, linguistic facet, is incorporated in our reflection and made visible, as the three aspects are conceived as interconstitutive of an event that can be, for certain postcolonial, non English speaking countries, of the rising of a social visibility and place. The corpus of analysis chosen for this study is hybrid, composed of a collection of answers to questionnaires and postings in discussion forums by students who participate in a four-year undergraduate long distance course of English and English Literature provided by a Federal University in the Southeast region of Brazil. The course licenses teachers for K-12 schools and is part of a Federal Program do graduate teachers. Our theoretical framework is a discursive one (Pêcheux, 1969, 1975), from which we see both English and ICTs as kinds of knowledge that are practiced within conditions of production related to history, processes of memory and subjectivation, together with post-colonial reflections on language policies and practices (Spivak, 1999), from which we discuss the specific characteristics of teaching/learning English in Brazil.
Media literacy has been one of the main strategies for promoting the inclusion of disadvantaged groups in Europe. These policies that favour empowering uses of media and information are based on the knowledge that it is not enough to guarantee access to ICTs. Cultural and social environments can say a lot about the uses of the media and how the information is used as a capital for personal and collective development and empowerment. Social exclusion is a multidimensional process. Following the European values that place knowledge at the heart of social and economic development, international institutions have focused on policies that promote social cohesion by favouring empowering personal uses of the media. In recent years, fighting the digital divide became less about access and more about its uses. The role of media and technology in the process of social development is not underestimated. They are seen as instruments for having citizens that are more active and participative. This paper analyses recommendations and proposals that address social inequalities in the European Union through the promotion of media literacy. This analysis shows that there is a consensus regarding the acquisition of skills that can promote critical thinking and offers a deeper understanding of the various dimensions that are favoured in the European context.
In this thesis, we tackle two social disruptions: recent refugee waves in Germany and the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) as a key means of alleviating these disruptions and promoting social inclusion. As social disruptions typically lead to frustration and fragmentation, it is essential to ensure the social inclusion of individuals and societies during such times. In the context of the social inclusion of refugees, we focus on the Syrian refugees who arrived in Germany as of 2015, as they form a large and coherent refugee community. In particular, we address the role of ICTs in refugees' social inclusion and investigate how different ICTs (especially smartphones and social networks) can foster refugees' integration and social inclusion. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we focus on the widespread unconventional working model of work from home (WFH). Our research here centers on the main constructs of WFH and the key differences in WFH experiences based on personal ...