Girls and Technology

A report was released recently entitled Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age, published by the American Association of University Women. 

The report reveals information about girls and technology that is somewhat alarming, if not surprising.  Since the earliest days of the computer revolution, high tech has been a male bastion, much like engineering, math and science. 

The problem starts in grade school.  For example, American girls represent 17 percent of takers of the Computer Science "AP" test, and less than 10% of the takers of the higher level Computer Science "AB" test.

Young women in university are also eschewing technology.  Women receive less than 28 percent of the computer science bachelor's degrees awarded in the U.S., down from a high of 37 percent in 1984.  In fact, computer science is the only field in which women’s participation has actually decreased over time.  Women make up just 9 percent of the recipients of engineering-related bachelor’s degrees (and the situation does not get better for American working women, who make up only 20 percent of IT professionals).

Amongst Tech-Savvy’s findings about school-age girls are their perceptions of  technology.  Girls find programming classes tedious and dull, computer games too boring, redundant, and violent, and computer career options uninspiring.  Girls do have clear and strong ideas about what kinds of computer games they would design: games that feature simulation, strategy, and interaction.  Games that would, in fact, appeal to a broad range of learners—boys and girls alike.  A main difference between the ways boys and girls use technology is highlighted in the report: girls feel they use computers to communicate, while boys use them to fool around.

To address the problems identified in Tech-Savvy a number of key recommendations for schools, communities, and the workplace are made. Among them:

• Look to girls and women to fill the IT job shortage: Girls are an untapped source of talent to lead the high-tech economy and culture.  American curriculum developers, teachers, technology experts, and schools need to cultivate girls’ interest by infusing technology concepts and uses into subject areas ranging from music to history to the sciences in order to interest a broader array of learners.
• Prepare tech-savvy teachers: Professional development for teachers needs to emphasize more than the use of the computer as a productivity tool. It must give teachers enough understanding of how computer technology works and its basic concepts so that they are empowered users.
• Educate girls to be designers, not just users: U.S. Educators and parents should help girls imagine themselves early in life as designers and producers of new technology.  Provide opportunities for girls to express their technological imaginations.
• Change the public face of computing: Media, teachers, and other adults need to make the public face of high tech women correspond to the reality rather than the stereotype. Girls tend to imagine that computer professionals live in a solitary, antisocial world. This is an alienating—and incorrect—perception.
• Create a family computer: Among other things, place computers in accessible home spaces. Think about shared or family-centred activities on the computer, rather than viewing its use as an individual or isolated activity.

For the full report, visit the AAUW website http://www.aauw.org/2000/techsavvy.html

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