Networking thus fosters more equal participation by obscuring the distinctions that give high-profile people the advantage. I first want to present these issues as they exist in a broader cultural context than the academic world, then as they apply to private universities and colleges and working class students in writing courses. Laurie Nisonoff et al claim that Issues of class difference and bias in education are no more sharply drawn than in small privileged, private colleges. Not only are differences in income of greater range, but implicit assumptions about background, lifestyle, and daily living place a special strain on students of working-class origins. And in private universities and colleges, these class differences tend to remain out of sight, overshadowed by the dominant ideologies of privilege.
Economic disparities affect what libraries can offer their patrons.
The more poorly funded in lower income communities are likely to be incapable of offering new technological means of gathering information. But the problems extend beyond the availability of funds for computers. These same economic disparities apply to public schools and the Internet. According to a recent U.S. Department of Education Survey, only 4.5 percent of all public schools have access to the Internet in all classrooms. In Fairfax County at Bailey's Elementary School in Virginia, there are many computers, but only one telephone line that allows Internet use which prevents email or Web activities involving an entire class.