Access Denied? : Cultural Capital and Digital Access

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. 1 Savitribai Phule Pune University, Assistant Professor, Dept of History. India. shraddha@unipune.ac.in 2 Savitribai Phule Pune University, Research Student, Dept of History. India 3 Savitribai Phule Pune University, Assistant Professor, Dept of Anthropology. India Artículos atravesados por (o cuestionando) la idea del sujeto -y su génerocomo una construcción psicobiológica de la cultura. Articles driven by (or questioning) the idea of the subject -and their genderas a cultural psychobiological construction Vol. 4 (1), 2019, octubre-marzo ISSN 2469-0783 https://datahub.io/dataset/2019-4-1-e70 Access Denied? : Cultural Capital and Digital Access Kumbhojkar S., Magar R. & Ozarkar S. Revista Científica Arbitrada de la Fundación MenteClara Vol. 4 (1) 2019, ISSN 2469-0783 66 Resumen Este artículo es un estudio cuantitativo a nivel micro de las percepciones de los estudiantes de ciencias sociales en la India sobre si el Wi-Fi gratuito les ha ayudado a aprender mejor. Se cree comúnmente que los recursos digitales son neutrales sobre las desigualdades sociales. Sin embargo, la encuesta revela que el capital sociocultural en forma de casta, género, idioma y ubicación tiene un impacto negativo en el acceso digital, incluso si es gratuito. El documento también infunde esperanza, ya que encuentra que casi todos los estudiantes en el campus de una Universidad Estatal en Western Maharashtra tienen acceso a Internet y la mayoría de estos estudiantes perciben que el acceso digital ha mejorado su rendimiento académico. Palabras Claves: internet; wi-fi universitario; castas; exclusión; segregación


Introduction
Every third Indian has access to the internet through her phone. The number of mobile internet users in India today is much higher than what was the total population of India in its first census of 1951 1  by necessity it breaks down boundaries between disciplines. It is an academic field self-reflexively looking at the application of digital technology to humanities fields of enquiry.

Approach
In this paper we are proposing that an alliance between History and DH can be approached in two ways. First, meaningfully engaging our computational abilities with the historical research we may be engaged in. For historians, this may involve digitisation of archives, digitally recording the living traditions, 3-D printing and imaging of rare artifacts or virtual mapping of heritage sites, possibilities are endless. In fact, many of these have already become a part of a day in the life of any person with a Smartphone. As regards the second approach, historians can boast of being the experts, as they already have the domain knowledge to understand the impact of novel and what are called as «disruptive» technologies on human interactions. In this second approach, the historians' expertise can be used to understand, analyse and explain the effects of digital technology on various aspects of our lives -ranging from increasing obesity and divorce rates to decreasing leisure time and attention spans. Thus, the interaction between History and Digital Humanities has two sides to it. The first and the more visible side uses computational techniques at every stage of historical research and its dissemination. Second and more unexplored side is using the historical research method to understand the changes brought about by the digital realities in the society we study. It is this second approach which is employed in this paper to understand the effects of free Wi-Fi connectivity on the students' perceptions about their academic achievements.

Background
The National Convention on Digital Initiatives for Higher Education was a convention attended by more than 700 Vice-Chancellors of Indian Universities. At this convention held on 9 th July 2017, a platform for The research project began in September 2017 and a structured questionnaire was administered to a total of 217 students from 9 departments that constitute the social sciences at SPPU.

Hypotheses
The study was undertaken to verify if the following hypotheses can be proved.
1. Students feel that they have benefitted academically from the free Wi-Fi access on SPPU campus. gender.

Discussion
Here are some relevant markers of the respondents' profile.  Thus, the study of the digital experience undertaken with a historical approach helps us understand why some people are more equal than others even as it is claimed that there is a democratization of knowledge because of the internet and the digital technology. The takeaway for a historian from this case study could be that the digital reality is definitely altering the lives of humans even as the entrenched socio-cultural realities are affecting the digital experience of the individual. As more and