Access Denied? : Cultural Capital and Digital Access

Abstract

The paper is a micro-level quantitative study of perceptions of social science students in India whether Free Wi-Fi has helped them learn better. It is commonly believed that digital resources are neutral about social inequalities. However, the survey finds that socio-cultural capital in the form of Caste, Gender, Language and Location has a negative impact on digital access even if it is free. The paper also instills hope as it finds that almost every student on the campus of a State University in Western Maharashtra has access to the Internet and majority of these students perceive that the digital access has improved their academic performance.

Keywords

• Internet
• university wi-fi
• castes
• exclusion
• segregation