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Enrollment and retention of female students in computer science education remains very low compared to other disciplines, even though numerous efforts have been made to change the status quo. Society begins to recognize the importance of increasing the number of qualified women in information technology, but this has not yet lead to large-scale sufficient improvements when it comes to education. But education is one of the most important areas of human endeavor in need of change as it lays the foundation for a successful career in the IT field. However, there are reports on successful activities and there are research results which point to potential valuable strategies that institutions can apply. In this paper we start to explore the possibilities of applying a pattern approach to describing successful strategies for improving enrollment and retention of female students in computer science education. We propose three patterns: APPLICABILITY HIGHLIGHTING, INCLUSIVE APPROACH, and INCLUSIVE REPRESENTATION.

There are many different reasons why few women participate in CS, such as geek culture, gender stereotypes, lack of female role models, or lack of support for females when choosing a CS career. There are also initiatives which successfully addressed these reasons, leading to a more diverse student population in CS education. In earlier work we identified important aspects of these initiatives and described them as educational design patterns. In this paper we connect these diverse patterns and make the beginning of a pattern language.