The Low-Income Families Digital Divide: Digital Inclusion Is Everybody's Business: Key Findings from the ARC Linkage Project Advancing Digital Inclusion in Low-Income Australian Families

The Australian Research Council Linkage Project (2021-2024), Advancing digital inclusion in low-income Australian families focuses on the digital inclusion impacts on children’s home and school learning experiences, school leaver’s transitions into work, and parenting in digital times. It is a collaboration between Queensland University of Technology, Western Sydney University, Swinburne University of Technology, RMIT University, Good Things Foundation, The Smith Family, yourtown, Infoxchange and the Digital Literacy Foundation. The need for this research project was apparent before the COVID-19 global pandemic, with many low-income families struggling to afford the digital devices and connections necessary to fully participate in the digital economy and society. The pandemic served to highlight the disparity in access and affordability for those people who already experience daily intersecting dimensions of disadvantage. Research teams from each of the four universities have been working with 30 families living in six communities around Australia over the last three years. Through ethnographic research with each family, and interviews with personnel from community organisations in the local area, researchers have developed a comprehensive evidence-base that outlines the key issues that affect the digital inclusion of low-income Australian families. This engagement in communities, over time, has led the researchers to conclude that efforts to address digital inclusion in low-income families need to be collaborative, and shared between multi-level stakeholders as digital inclusion is everybody’s business.