Is the access to ICT perceived by policy makers as new cause of social inequalities?

Piotr Szukalski
Wielisława Warzywoda-Kruszyńska, Institute of Sociology

The access to the ICT, especially to Internet, is often seem as new producer of social inequalities. People devoid of the access are at the same time destitute of access to on-line services and information and have lesser chances to find good job. We hope that in-depth interviews with policy makers from 8 European countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, UK - project PROFIT - 6FP) will help us to determine whether politicians responsible for education at national at local level are aware of the new producer and new threats. We'll try to determine categories of children and youth with limited or impeded access as potentially "nouveaux pauvres" in the future. We expect that significant differences between Western and Central European countries regarding importance of the producer of inequalities and categories of vulnerable population will exist.