Internet Inequalities

Abstract

This article focuses on the Web-based resources available to low-income students as they build their perceptions, make their decisions, and engage in financial aid activities. Data are gathered from the results of focus groups and case studies. Findings suggest that low-income students do have access to computers but lack the knowledge and support needed to navigate the financial aid resources available online.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Web Accessibility: Digital Equity for Hispanic Students With Disabilities in the 21st Century

“…To help remedy this ongoing and problematic issue, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 sought to mitigate the socially constructed discrimination facing people with disabilities (Jones, 1996), mandating that people with disabilities must be allowed comparable educational opportunities as their non-disabled peers (United States Department of Justice and Civil Rights, 2017). An important element of higher education access for people with disabilities is access to online resources, as the Internet is now the leading source of postsecondary information nearly for all types of aspiring postsecondary students (Burdett, 2013; Daun-Barnett, & Das, 2013; Venegas, 2006).…”

Ecological models in higher education research: Overview and synthesis

“…Bronfenbrenner's human ecology model Bronfenbrenner's (1977Bronfenbrenner's ( , 1995 bioecological systems model is one of the most widely used in studies of human development. After Renn and Arnold (2003) introduced Bronfenbrenner's ecological model to higher education studies, it became a mainstay of research on college student development (see Patton et al, 2016 for a summary of studies) and has gained some traction in studies of organizations (Leonard, 2011), pedagogy (Fovet, 2021), faculty (Golden et al, 2017), and policy (Venegas, 2006). Bronfenbrenner modified his model over time (see Vélez-Agosto et al, 2017 for a summary) and higher education researchers draw from slightly different variations to put their own interpretations on it, but the central concepts of the model remain.…”

Website Representations of Saudi Universities in Makkah Region: A Critical Discourse Analysis Approach

“…Most research based on the criteria of university choice is mainly focused on different factors related to socioeconomics, race, access to counsellors, university characteristics, athletics and university scholarships and funding (Del Vecchio, 2017;McDonough & Calderone, 2006;Nora, 2004;Osei-Kofi & Torres, 2015;Perna & Titus, 2005), with little attention paid to examining the online discourse underlying these issues on universities' websites (Saichaie, 2010). Such research is especially important, as the digital divide between haves and have-nots is shrinking and global access to the Internet is ever-increasing (Saichaie, 2011;Venegas, 2006). Hence, this study attempts to fill a gap in the body of knowledge concerning the textual and visual representations of Saudi university websites by incorporating CDA, an approach that has hardly ever been applied to a topic that has predominantly been researched quantitively (Perna, 2006).…”

“…Although a host of factors influence students' university choice, the socioeconomic factor is the most decisive (Saichaie, 2011). The university choice process of students with high socioeconomic status seems to be more rationalized and professionally supported than that of students with low socioeconomic status, as they have access to far fewer resources, such as information and financial support (McDonough, 1994;Venegas, 2006). However, research on the factors affecting students' university choice has largely neglected the influence of university websites (Howard, 2013).…”