The equity blind spot in school screen-time policies

Education Access & Equity Education Technology K-12 Education

教育机会与公平 教育技术 K-12 教育

Ahead of students returning to the classroom in the fall, the majority of states have advanced restrictions or bans on cellphones or personal devices in K-12 schools.

在学生秋季重返课堂之前，大多数州都对 K-12 学校中的手机或个人设备实施了提前限制或禁令。

A smaller but growing body of legislation is beginning to impose similar restrictions on artificial intelligence (AI).

规模较小但不断增长的立法机构开始对人工智能（AI）施加类似的限制。

These policy surges reflect genuine and well-documented concerns among educators, parents, and lawmakers about attention, adolescent mental health, and the volume of time that young people spend on their devices.

这些政策的激增反映了教育工作者、家长和立法者对注意力、青少年心理健康以及年轻人花在电子设备上的时间的真实和有据可查的担忧。

However, as these policies move from legislatures into classrooms, their distributional consequences merit closer scrutiny.

然而，随着这些政策从立法机关进入课堂，它们的分配后果值得更密切的审查。

The question of whether device restrictions will serve a legitimate pedagogical purpose is a central one and should exist alongside whether the costs and benefits of that purpose will be distributed evenly across student populations.

设备限制是否会服务于合法的教学目的是一个核心问题，并且应该与该目的的成本和收益是否会在学生群体中平均分配一起存在。

The scale of these legislative shifts are considerable, especially since states and districts invested upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars to improve digital access during the COVID-19 pandemic.

这些立法转变的规模相当大，特别是考虑到各州和地区在 COVID-19 大流行期间投资了数亿美元以上来改善数字访问。

According to Brookings internal research trackers on these new edtech-related policies, nearly 40 states and the District of Columbia have enacted some form of device restriction, divided between broad personal electronic device bans that cover laptops, tablets, and smart watches, and narrower policies aimed specifically at cellphones.

根据布鲁金斯学会对这些新的教育科技相关政策的内部研究追踪，近 40 个州和哥伦比亚特区已经颁布了某种形式的设备限制，其中包括涵盖笔记本电脑、平板电脑和智能手表的广泛个人电子设备禁令，以及专门针对手机的狭义政策。

Enforcement mechanisms vary with some states imposing “ bell-to-bell ” prohibitions to keep devices locked away for the entire school day, while other districts are restricting use during instructional time periods.

执行机制各不相同，一些州实行“逐项”禁令，要求在整个教学日锁定设备，而其他学区则限制在教学期间使用设备。

A parallel legislative track is targeting younger grades.

平行的立法轨道是针对年轻年级的。

Iowa has capped digital instruction at 60 minutes a day for kindergarten through fifth grade; Utah has directed its board of education to develop grade-specific technology rules and prohibit one-device-per-student ratios in elementary school; and Tennessee and Alabama have adopted comparable age-based digital limits.

爱荷华州已将幼儿园至五年级的数字教学时间限制为每天 60 分钟；犹他州已指示其教育委员会制定针对特定年级的技术规则，并禁止小学中每个学生一台设备的比例；田纳西州和阿拉巴马州也采用了类似的基于年龄的数字限制。

Corresponding proposals in Missouri and Oklahoma stalled in their respective legislatures amid opposition from technology-industry trade group, the Software and Industry Association, warning that unfunded mandates—such as caps on screen time—would strain district resources.

由于科技行业贸易组织软件和行业协会的反对，密苏里州和俄克拉荷马州的相应提案在各自的立法机构中陷入僵局，并警告说，没有资金支持的强制规定（例如屏幕时间上限）将导致地区资源紧张。

District-level policy is moving along a similar trajectory.

地区级政策也沿着类似的轨迹发展。

The Los Angeles Unified School District—the nation’s second largest—now imposes systemwide, grade-by-grade instructional screen limits , ranging from zero minutes for kindergarteners and first graders to 90 minutes per subject per week for high school students.

全美第二大的洛杉矶联合学区现在实行全系统、逐年级的教学屏幕限制，范围从幼儿园和一年级学生的零分钟到高中生每周每个科目 90 分钟。

While this legislative wave is typically framed around student attention and screen time, it less visibly leans into the impact of these restrictions on racial equity, a dimension that deserves fuller consideration in the policy discourse received to date.

虽然这一立法浪潮通常围绕学生的注意力和屏幕时间展开，但它不太明显地倾向于这些限制对种族平等的影响，这一维度值得在迄今为止收到的政策讨论中得到更充分的考虑。

Consider discipline outcomes.

考虑纪律结果。

In examining Florida’s statewide phone ban, the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the policy’s first year of implementation coincided with a marked rise in suspensions that were unevenly distributed across demographics.

在审查佛罗里达州全州范围内的电话禁令时，美国国家经济研究局发现，该政策实施的第一年恰逢停电数量显着增加，而且停电数量在人口统计中分布不均。

In-school suspensions increased substantially overall, but that increase was concentrated almost entirely among Black students, while white and Hispanic students experienced no significant change in discipline rates.

校内停学总体大幅增加，但这种增加几乎全部集中在黑人学生中，而白人和西班牙裔学生的纪律率没有显着变化。

While this pattern is difficult to explain as a function of behavioral differences between groups, it is more likely a function of enforcement—specifically, who receives a verbal warning when phones are present versus who is formally disciplined when the application of the restriction depends on discretionary judgement exercised in real time.

虽然这种模式很难解释为群体之间行为差异的函数，但它更有可能是强制执行的函数，具体来说，当有电话存在时，谁会收到口头警告，而当限制的应用取决于实时进行的自由裁量判断时，谁会受到正式纪律处分。

That discretion does not operate in a vacuum.

这种自由裁量权并不是在真空中运作的。

More than 70% of the national K-12 teaching workforce is white, and a substantial body of research documents how implicit, largely unconscious assumptions about Black students’ behavior and academic potential shape disciplinary decision-making.

全国 K-12 教师队伍中超过 70% 是白人，大量研究记录了对黑人学生行为和学术潜力的隐性、很大程度上无意识的假设如何影响纪律决策。

A policy that is seemingly race-neutral, like restrictions on devices, can still produce disparate outcomes once it is filtered through classroom dynamics shaped by these assumptions.

看似种族中立的政策，例如对设备的限制，一旦经过由这些假设形成的课堂动态的过滤，仍然可能产生不同的结果。

Scholars of school belonging have also described this dynamic through the framework of “opportunity structures”: the interpersonal relationships, instructional design choices, and institutional policies that either affirm or undermine a student’s sense of belonging within the school community.

研究学校归属感的学者也通过“机会结构”的框架来描述这种动态：人际关系、教学设计选择以及肯定或削弱学生在学校社区内的归属感的制度政策。

Viewed through this lens, a device policy can function as more than a rule about hardware.

从这个角度来看，设备策略的作用不仅仅是关于硬件的规则。

It operates as an institutional signal with downstream effects on how students experience their relationships with teachers and administrators and their standing within the school.

它作为一种制度信号，对学生如何体验与教师和管理人员的关系以及他们在学校中的地位产生下游影响。

A second, less examined equity dimension concerns disability and access.

第二个较少被研究的公平维度涉及残疾和无障碍。

Black students are overrepresented in special education placements, and assistive technology often plays a central role in how these students access instructional content.

黑人学生在特殊教育安置中所占比例过高，而辅助技术通常在这些学生如何获取教学内容方面发挥着核心作用。

Regardless of the contested question of what drives that overrepresentation, a device policy without carefully constructed exceptions for assistive and accommodated use risks withdrawing tools that some students need to simply participate in instruction.

不管是什么导致了这种比例过高这一有争议的问题，如果设备政策没有仔细构建辅助和适应使用的例外情况，那么就有可能会撤销一些学生简单地参与教学所需的工具。

The Los Angeles school district’s policy, along with those in New York , Michigan , Tennessee , and Illinois , offer models worth noting in this regard, explicitly exempting students in individualized education programs (IEPs) that call for device use from their screen-time limits.

洛杉矶学区的政策以及纽约、密歇根、田纳西和伊利诺伊州的政策在这方面提供了值得注意的模式，明确免除了参加个性化教育计划（IEP）的学生，这些计划要求使用设备不受屏幕时间限制。

The meaning that a device holds for students is another consideration that merits attention.

设备对学生的意义是另一个值得关注的考虑因素。

For many families, a personal device functions as a mechanism for safety and connection.

对于许多家庭来说，个人设备充当安全和联系的机制。

Given the frequency of lockdown drills and legitimate concerns about school violence, the capacity to reach a child during an emergency carries considerable weight and “bell-to-bell” locker pouch systems that remove phones for the entirety of the school day have generated documented parental anxiety .

考虑到封锁演习的频繁性和对校园暴力的合理担忧，在紧急情况下联系孩子的能力具有相当大的重要性，而“按铃”的储物袋系统在整个上学日都不带手机，这已经引起了家长的焦虑。

For students in underserved or historically marginalized communities, personal devices also frequently serve as a connective link to social and cultural networks beyond a school environment that may not always feel welcoming.

对于生活在服务不足或历史上边缘化社区的学生来说，个人设备也经常充当与学校环境之外的社交和文化网络的连接纽带，而学校环境可能并不总是让人感到宾至如归。

Consistent with these concerns, Pew Research Center found that Black teenagers expressed comparatively lower levels of support for all-day restrictions relative to peers, a finding that policymakers should take into account.

与这些担忧一致的是，皮尤研究中心发现，与同龄人相比，黑人青少年对全天限制的支持程度相对较低，政策制定者应该考虑这一发现。

The evidence concerning excessive, unstructured device use is substantial; thus, this is not an argument against managing screen time or refocusing classroom attention on instruction.

有关过度、非结构化设备使用的证据是大量的；因此，这并不是反对管理屏幕时间或将课堂注意力重新集中在教学上。

There is growing unease about overreliance on classroom technology.

人们对过度依赖课堂技术越来越感到不安。

However, designing policy built primarily around timestamps discounts culturally informed nuances.

然而，主要围绕时间戳设计政策会忽视文化上的细微差别。

For example, 10 minutes spent passively scrolling bears little resemblance, pedagogically, to 10 minutes spent using a device for research, accessibility, accommodation, or creative production, and time-cap policies are poorly positioned to make this distinction.

例如，从教学角度来看，花 10 分钟被动滚动与花 10 分钟使用设备进行研究、访问、住宿或创意制作几乎没有什么相似之处，而且时间上限政策也很难做出这种区分。

Lastly, a related and longer-standing concern is the digital divide.

最后，一个相关且长期存在的问题是数字鸿沟。

Research on technology and educational inequality documents a persistent pattern in which students from wealthier backgrounds accumulate generative, skill-building experiences with technology, while students from underserved communities more frequently encounter technology primarily through restriction and surveillance.

关于技术和教育不平等的研究记录了一种持久的模式，即来自富裕背景的学生通过技术积累生成性、技能建设的经验，而来自服务不足社区的学生则更频繁地主要通过限制和监视来接触技术。

Blanket bans risk reinforcing this pattern, allowing more affluent students to continue building digital fluency and literacy while other students lose access altogether.

一揽子禁令可能会强化这种模式，让更多富裕的学生继续培养数字流畅性和素养，而其他学生则完全失去访问权限。

One productive, more calibrated, framework for understanding the overall policy issue is targeted universalism , recently extended to education policy by scholars Royel Johnson and colleagues.

有针对性的普遍主义是理解整体政策问题的一种富有成效的、更精确的框架，最近由学者罗伊尔·约翰逊（Royel Johnson）及其同事扩展到教育政策。

The approach involves establishing a shared universal goal—in this context, for example, sustained attention and sense of belonging for every student—and pursuing that goal through strategies calibrated to the specific barriers different groups face, rather than through a single undifferentiated rule applied uniformly.

该方法涉及建立一个共同的普遍目标——例如，在这种情况下，对每个学生的持续关注和归属感——并通过针对不同群体面临的具体障碍调整的策略来实现该目标，而不是通过统一应用的单一无差别规则。

Operationalized, this framework suggests several concrete design principles: replacing subjective, in-the-moment teacher discretion with clear and consistently applied enforcement standards, so that identical behavior yields identical consequences regardless of who exhibits it; preserving explicit exceptions for assistive technology, medical needs, and emergency communication; and investing in digital literacy instruction that teaches students to regulate their own technology use, rather than relying primarily on confiscation and discipline as the operative mechanism.

在操作上，该框架提出了几个具体的设计原则：用明确且一致应用的执行标准取代主观的、即时的教师自由裁量权，以便无论谁表现出相同的行为都会产生相同的后果；保留辅助技术、医疗需求和紧急通信的明确例外情况；投资于数字素养教学，教导学生规范自己的技术使用，而不是主要依靠没收和纪律作为运作机制。

States and districts are taking positive steps by treating screen time and student attention seriously, and recognizing, through the devolution of implementation decisions to the local level, that districts’ needs are not identical.

州和学区正在采取积极措施，认真对待屏幕时间和学生注意力，并通过将实施决策下放到地方一级来认识到学区的需求并不相同。

That recognition, however, warrants extension one level further: Schools within a given district are themselves heterogeneous, and the staffing, resources, and disciplinary cultures that determine how a policy is actually implemented continue to track closely along racial lines.

然而，这种认识值得进一步扩展：特定地区内的学校本身是异质的，决定政策实际实施方式的人员配置、资源和纪律文化继续密切关注种族界限。

The students walking back into classrooms this fall inherit a set of rules built for a universal problem; the task ahead is making sure those rules were built with a particular understanding of who bears their weight, Black students among them.

今年秋天回到教室的学生们继承了一套针对普遍问题而制定的规则；未来的任务是确保制定这些规则时要特别了解谁承担着他们的责任，其中包括黑人学生。