We all know that there is a digital divide and that there are fewer books in homes and neighborhoods that are less advantaged. We also know that children in more privileged homes hear many more vocabulary words than those in poorer homes. This is not news. However, libraries are bridging that gap by providing books and computers to people in low-income neighborhoods. Right?
Well, kind of. It’s more complicated than that. It turns out that just providing the materials and computers does not close the gap, especially for young children.
In fact, in their paper “Worlds Apart: One City, Two Libraries, and Ten Years of Watching Inequality Grow,” Susan B. Neuman and Donna C. Celano posit that for both print and digital resource use, it’s all about adult involvement. In their 10-year-long study in Philadelphia, they discovered that while adults in the more economically advantaged neighborhood were continually interacting with their children while the kids used both print and digital media, the kids in the poorer area were mostly left to their own devices. And without adult involvement, kids demonstrate “short bursts of activity, almost frenetic in nature”.
Even with so-called intuitive software, digital play is not as self-sufficient as it seems. “Toddlers and preschoolers, although they appear capable, are not all that intuitive at negotiating the software… Without help, children can revert to random clicking”. Without parent support, educational computers take on a different kind of role: that of a video arcade. Neuman and Celano suggest several action steps in order to close this gap, most notably “targeted human resources,” also known as adult mentors and technology specialists. It turns out that simply providing the materials does not solve the problem. In order for our less-advantaged children to “seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction” they need interaction with supportive adults. Now that you think about it, this is not a surprise, is it?
So what can we do to help bridge this gap?
For further reading, see the following book by Neuman and Celano: Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance: Poverty, Literacy, and the Development of Information Capital.
Amanda Goldson, ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee
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To bridge the gap, there needs to be a common ground in the middle. This is where churches, community organizations, non-profits, and clubs filled in the gaps. So many years ago church groups were bustling with activity, and participation in groups and clubs such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H, Lion’s Club, Kiwanis, and other such community participation groups made a difference. The decline in membership in these organizations is reflected in increased membership costs. We have still a high unemployment number in many cities, and a large proportion of people on government assistance. We also have a disconnected society, where group participation is discouraged or discouraging in favor of the isolated individual. There is also a large amount of infighting between members of organizations with the result being more people dropping out of organizations meant to help their communities. There are still attitudes that if one is not getting paid, then volunteering is not worth their time. There are too many people addicted to drugs and alcohol, and even worse are the “kids in the middle”, those kids who shuttle between parents after a divorce. Where one parent tries to get their kids involved, their efforts are undermined by the other parent’s equal determination to not get involved. And so, the organizations that once helped fill in those gaps are falling apart.
The biggest problem lies with the individualized operations of each organization. Most charitable organizations operate individually with almost little or no communication with any other organization. For instance, I had lived in a small town in the middle of California for 8 years, had moved out and was visiting this town for some errands when I took a wrong turn and discovered a building housing the town’s Senior Citizen Service and Resource Center, something I never knew existed and certainly had never made a name for themselves in that town. I had been to many Main Street Fairs and Community Outreach fetes in the park, and not once had this organization made themselves known. It is this very lack of communication between organizations that needs to be addressed. Many children receive free toothbrushes from the health organization and free pencils and coloring books from the other Medical Clinic booths, but both organizations are too interested in getting people to pay attention to the name and loyalty to the logo rather than communicate with each other. One church provides meals to the senior citizens while the church next door provides once-a-month food boxes, but neither have pamphlets for the Pregnancy Help Center or Center for the Disabled or information on where to get needed vaccinations. In order to help “Bridge the Gap” between the advantaged and disadvantaged kids, the communication gap between the individual organizations must be bridged. And the service organizations must make themselves known to all of the churches and become stronger, more visible ropes in the “Safety Net”. If parents don’t know that a Boys and Girls Club facility even exists, they won’t bring their kids there. If Boys and Girls Club don’t have a booth at the Main Street Fair, people won’t go out of their way to find out about it. If the Boys and Girls Club never associates with the churches, the churches will never send volunteers to help the Boys and Girls Club. If the Red Cross only asks for money, they will never have any volunteers. If the churches never invite the Red Cross to help teach first aid to their congregation, people will never know there is a Red Cross chapter in their town.
Right now the gap is starting to be bridged in this town in California through a large non-denominational church that has partnered with several organizations to help provide for the needs and concerns of the parents, including “Celebrate Recovery” a program designed to help recovering addicts regain control of their lives. The church sponsors a youth basketball league, and the recovering addicts sign up their kids. The church supports and sends young pregnant teens and women to the Pregnancy Help Center, and the Men’s Ministry provides groups and support for men of all ages. Because of this, the parents who attend this church and the support groups are turning around and offering more to their children and are showing more interest and focus in their children’s education. My next-door neighbors were former addicts who had just gotten their 3 boys back from CPS and were living together again as a family, and attending that church, participating in “Celebrate Recovery”, having other friends join them in church and “Celebrate Recovery”, they learned how to be better, more involved parents to their boys and their boys blossomed as a result. ANd this is all because of one non-denominational church that advertised well their programs and made it a point to communicate their availability of programs in cooperation with several other churches in that town.
Organizations need to start communicating with each other and start picking up the slack. Organizations and churches need to know about each other in each community so that people can stop running around in circles not knowing where or how to find help and be directed to where help is available. Parents need to know about free programs and safe places for their kids to go after school and on weekends. When people in the communities communicate with one another, and when churches and organizations communicate with one another and start providing real assistance to those in need, the “safety net”becomes stronger and the parents needs are better met and as a result their relationship with their children will improve and that is when that gap will be bridged.