Technology and Social Equity
Benefits of modern technology become available sooner or later to the majority of population. The electronic products of all kinds, as well as the technological advancement in medicine, are initially available only to the richest individuals in society, but with time, the latest innovations spread to the rest of the population fairly quickly (Kitahara 91). For instance, some items like automobiles or televisions are now available to practically everyone both poor and rich. This is what we call, "a long-term trend of capitalism."(91) In the US, the country which is considered as the world's center of technology development, technology and social equity have a very tight relationship. On one hand, the development of technology improve social mobility. That's why today we can see many Asian Americans, whose earlier generations were recognized as second or even third class citizens, now working in high technology companies and earning relatively stable and high salaries, compared to other minority groups. However, on the other hand, "the equality of outcomes" may also be negatively affected by the development of technology (92). Because of financial problems and cultural backgrounds, some African Americans or Latinos still hav
However, some factors like financial inability have limited some minority families the opportunity to access high technology. First, high technology education helps Asian Americans enjoy the uprising of their social status. In earlier generations, Asian immigrants felt that they were second-class citizens with lower incomes and lower job prestige, compared with white people. After studying relative success of white people, Asian Americans were aware that their humble educational backgrounds caused their low social status. Therefore, for preventing the next generation from repeating the same fate, Asian American parents already start addressing to their children about the idea that "school success is gaining entrance into the best colleges" when their children are still little (Tureba 134). Besides continually asking their children what they plan to do in the future, Asian American parents also "force" their children to choose fields in which they think their children will most likely find success. For instance, Most Asian Americans consider computer science an important field because it "lends itself to other fields well known to them such as programming and electrical engineering."(134) Therefore, they encourage their children to become computer specialists because such a job will guarantee their children a reliable and relatively high income. Thus, today many Asian Americans can be found being working at very high positions in some computer-related high technology companies. They're generally highly skilled engineers or computer programmers, compared with other ethnic groups of people who work in the computer-related fields, because they have already started sharpening their skills at their young ages. Moreover, in order to enable their children to be successful in the future, most Asian Americans have to make sacrifices. For example, a lot of Asian American parents would like to send their children to private universities, such as Ivy-League schools, whose tuitions usually cost more than 20,000 dollars a year, despite the fact that they barely make more than 40,000 a year themselves. For these parents, a diploma from a university like Harvard will guarantee their kids great career opportunities. Also, "most middle-class Asian American families have computers in their homes, and many have very sophisticated equipment."(134) Although advanced computers must cost them a fortune, Asian American parents still think that it is worth investigating, as they believe that auxiliary learning in high technology will enhance their children's academic success. After making certain kinds of sacrifices, parents always expect performance in return from their children. Their aims are to allow their children to live in better lives, to achieve huge success in their careers, and most importantly to become first-class citizens and to share equity with white people, which was a long-time dream for those Asian American parents. First, conditions of education and training on technology in the public schools of some districts mostly occupied by low-income minorities are not good enough. "Inequality of educational opportunity, based on income differentials between school districts
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Approximate Word count = 2158
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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