Access(ing), habits, attitudes, and engagements: Re-thinking access as practice

Government efforts to universalize access have resulted in narrow constructions of access as ownership of technology. This article posits a more substantive dialogue of access, one that goes beyond connectivity issues, to consider how the “practice of access” influences technology-use, examining attitudes and ideas about communication and computing technologies. Looking at one effort to address the digital divide in a technology camp for middle school students, I argue that access is practice and that if we examine the “practice of access” in our classrooms and in our research, we look not at the technology but at the practices—what gets reinforced, valued, and rewarded by local communities. The “practice of access” is a more useful way of understanding how social and economic infrastructures mediate access. In this way, access is re-cast as a mutable practice that is influenced by real, everyday practices.