{"id":409,"date":"2009-09-10T14:50:43","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T18:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/?p=409"},"modified":"2012-09-27T10:37:35","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T14:37:35","slug":"are-girls-excluded-from-ict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/gender-equality-in-ict-education\/are-girls-excluded-from-ict\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Girls Excluded From ICT, Or Just Perceived So?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the early years of the Internet, the typical user was young, male and most likely to be American. In the last ten years, the picture has changed significantly, with women representing a larger proportion of internet users, at a range of different ages.  However there is still concern among both governments and the ICT industry that girls are excluded from ICT \u2013 is this reality, or just perception? <\/p>\n<p><b>What do girls do with ICT, and is there any difference compared to boys?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In countries where internet access is common, young people in general are heavy users of ICT tools, particularly in leisure time. Girls are particularly fond of social networking tools, blogs and other tools that enable communication with peers.  Increasingly, they are playing games on handhelds or consoles, but also online. This compares to boys, who tend to focus more on games (online or handheld\/consoles). Girls are also more keen on creative technologies for artistic expression compared to their male counterparts.<\/p>\n<p><b>How do girls and boys differ in educational achievement in ICT?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>According to our research in the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.eun.org\/insightblog\/2009\/06\/ict_gender_gap_stereotyped_thi.html\">White Paper on &#8220;Women and ICT: Why are girls still not attracted to ICT studies and careers?&#8221;<\/a> at secondary school level, there is very little difference between boys and girls in terms of achievement in ICT studies \u2013 although their self-perception is different. Girls tend to understate their skills whereas boys usually overestimate their competence.<\/p>\n<p>Girls often report that they enjoy studying ICT. In countries where this is not the case, it is typically due to an over-emphasis on pure programming skills in the curriculum &#8211; which is typically less attractive to girls compared to e.g. multimedia skills. <\/p>\n<p>However there is a major issue in transition to tertiary level \u2013 most girls \u2018drop out\u2019 of ICT studies in favour of other subject areas such as foreign languages. This is in part explained by the fact that girls often study fewer related technical subjects (e.g. maths, physics) than their male counterparts (despite having comparable levels of achievement) and these subjects are pre-requisites for higher education in ICT. They also believe that ICT studies will not give them sufficient opportunities for creativity and team working compared to other fields.<\/p>\n<p><b>So what\u2019s causing the problem?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Girls, compared to boys, are more influenced by role models in their environment \u2013 whether \u2018close\u2019 role models such as parents, teachers and family or \u2018distant\u2019 role models such as famous actresses and musicians. It is clear that the lack of ICT-oriented role models is a dissuading factor for girls: their role models don\u2019t see ICT tertiary studies or ICT careers as female-friendly and this attitude impacts negatively on the girls that look up to them.  <\/p>\n<p>Similarly, their choice of more technical subjects such as maths and physics at upper secondary and tertiary level is influenced by role models\u2019 perception of gender dominance. <\/p>\n<p>Another key issue is that parents, school guidance counselors and teachers lack knowledge of ICT studies and careers: they thus do not encourage students who express interest in such areas, as they perceive ICT as a field where there are good career opportunities for girls.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, girls often express a need to \u2018help the world\u2019 with their future careers: ICT is not a field in which they feel they can do this.<\/p>\n<p><b>How can we address these issues through the education system?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>There are numerous areas where improvements could be made in education to encourage girls to participate more actively in ICT, for instance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Integrate ICT better into a variety of subjects, so that ICT skills are acquired in a range of contexts (e.g. using ICT tools as part of language lessons).<\/li>\n<li>For countries where girls dislike ICT curricula, revise curricula to encourage acquisition of broader IT skills to include creative technologies  (e.g. graphic design, video editing) as well as programming.<\/li>\n<li>To encourage further female uptake of ICT at tertiary level, involve more female IT professionals and female IT students in careers activities in schools (e.g. through inviting guest speakers in schools, or visiting local IT company facilities\/university departments), ideally involving parents in the process and demonstrating how ICT contributes to solving societies challenges (e.g. environment, healthcare).<\/li>\n<li>Organisation of informal ICT activities, such as computer clubs, alongside the school curriculum that give young people the space to \u2018play\u2019 with ICT which is not feasible within the usually packed daily schedule. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the early years of the Internet, the typical user was young, male and most likely to be American. In the last ten years, the picture has changed significantly, with women representing a larger proportion of internet users, at a range of different ages.  However there is still concern among both governments and the ICT industry that girls are excluded from ICT \u2013 is this reality, or just perception? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[156],"tags":[172,122,163,27,175,173,177,176,174],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2630,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions\/2630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}