Young women entering IT field is a rarity, according to study.
The Information Superhighway may have many drivers – but the majority of them are males. According to the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation’s new study, “Tech-Savvy, Educating Girls in the New Computer Age,” young women have reservations about the computer culture and as a result, women are less likely to participate in high school computer classes, or choose a career that deals primarily with technology. And though Information Technology jobs are projected to be among the fastest growing in this decade — with an expected growth according to the U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics between 1996 and 2006 of 118 percent for computer scientists; 109 percent for computer engineers; and 103 percent for systems analysts – women are under-represented and unprepared in these fields, according to the study.
The Tech-Savvy study found that part of the problem was girls’ views of computer careers, and the computer culture – including software, games, and Internet environments.
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Girls “tend to reproduce stereotypes of a ‘computer person’ as a male and anti-social, a cliché that has proven resistant to the growing diversity of information technology and its users.”
The study results don’t surprise George Loftus, head of Rhode Island’s Information Technology Academies, a statewide educational curriculum created out of a concern over the shortage of qualified IT professionals that currently exists in the state.
“We aren’t seeing as many young women involved with our programs as we would like,” he said. “I think (girls) think of sitting in front of a computer all day as rather nerdy. The image is one of working alone, and that doesn’t attract them.”
Loftus said part of the problem is the lack of exposure to technology for children in the early years of education, a trend that is often continued through high school.
Statistics from the survey supported Loftus’s idea. One-semester and full-year computer science programs attract significantly more males than females, while girls were significantly more likely than boys to enroll in data-entry classes, the 1990s version of typing. In addition, 83 percent of the high-school students who took the Advancement Placement A Test in Computer Science, which covers topics in a first semester introductory college course were male, compared to the 17 percent of females. An even smaller number, 9 percent, of girls took the AP AB test, which covers a full-year introductory college course.
Once in college, the number of women participating in similar programs continues to decrease. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 1995 women comprised 9 percent of earned bachelor’s degrees in engineering-related technologies, 28 percent of earned bachelor’s degrees in computer and information sciences, and 17 percent of earned bachelor’s degrees in engineering. At the doctoral level, women earned 18 percent of computer and information science’s degrees, 12 percent of engineering degrees and 11 percent of engineering-related technologies degrees.
According to the survey, the only way to change the statistics is to change the delivery of education.
“The (study) makes it clear that girls are critical of the computer culture, not computer phobic,” said Sherry Turkle, professor of Sociology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-chair of the AAUW Educational Foundation Commission on Technology, Gender, and Teacher Education. “Instead of trying to make girls fit into the existing computer culture, the computer culture must become more inviting for girls.”
Peter Woodberry, dean of Business and Technology at the Community College of Rhode Island agreed.
“Attracting women into this field is an initiative that needs to happen in this state,” he said. “It needs to be spread wide at all grade levels. There needs to more information and education on the opportunities and careers in these fields.”
The college is one of three in the county that is being used as a demonstration site for the Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science. The three-year program funded through a federal grant provides the school with the opportunity to assess how it’s meeting the needs of women in the fields of technology, as well as how it could better train women in those fields. Woodberry called the program “the perfect fit” for the school, which also coordinates the state ITA program.
“We’ve assembled a leadership team including faculty, employers and representatives from schools around the state,” he said. “We really need to learn and become aware of things we are doing unconsciously and be aware of things that need to be changed to attract more women into these fields. We are looking at the present images we use in our media presentations; we are actually assessing are our enrollments to find out what courses are being offered at the high school level; and we looking at our general staffing to see if we could use more women role models.”
Once a part of the technology fields, many agree the upward movement for both women and men is great.
“There is no limit to being successful in this field,” Loftus said. “There are no gender criteria here. If you are aggressive and willing to learn, the sky is the limit.”
