Encouraging Girls to Consider a Career in ICT: A Review of Strategies

Abstract

This article reviews strategies designed to improve female participation in ICT studies and careers. In reviewing a range of strategies from around the world, the article identifies the different actors engaging with the "problem" of girls and technology. It points to the many crossovers that occur as governments, higher education providers, industry, and the voluntary sector complement each other in their search for effective solutions to a dilemma that is increasingly recognised as being much more complex than a simple dichotomy of gender and technology. The particular milieu for which this review has been conducted -an educationally and otherwise disadvantaged area of Melbourne, Australia -is reflected in identification of strategies specifically focused on girls and women with low socio-economic status (SES) and students exposed to educational disadvantage.The first section of this article -an introduction to and overview of the global problem of female under-representation in ICT -provides a context in which the problem, as it exists in Australia, may be understood. Section two consists of four sub-sections in which various types of intervention strategies are described. The sub-sections: Government/Policy-Driven Activity, Education Institutions/Research Activity, Industry Groups, and Voluntary Initiatives indicate the breadth of effort being employed in pursuit of solutions to the "problem" of girls and technology. They point also to considerable overlaps in design, delivery, and results, and illuminate many of the problems encountered along the way. The third and final section of this article discusses the pros and cons of the various types of approach, comparing and contrasting the efforts of government, educational institutions, industry-based groups, and voluntary initiatives in their search for successful and sustainable ways of attracting girls to ICT studies and careers. This article brings together in one place a variety of strategies aimed at improving female participation in ICT studies. In doing so, it highlights the difficulty of one-size-fits-all approaches and illuminates the importance of front and back-end processes to the delivery of successful programs. It demonstrates that for those designing programs capable of attracting girls to ICT, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

The Role of Ethics in Developing Professionalism Within the Global ICT Community.

“…Finally, in most regions, women and minority groups are underrepresented in the ICT profession (Iclaves, 2013), which some participants in our research considered to be an issue of social justice that the ICT profession has an ethical imperative to address. There have been a number of international efforts to increase the number of women entering ICT courses and careers with varying degrees of impact (Miliszewska & Moore, 2010).…”

Utilizando Regras de Associação para Delinear o Perfil Feminino em Ciência da Computação

“…Segundo Miliszewska e Moore [Moliszewska and Moore 2010], apesar das iniciativas existentes para abordar a escassez feminina naárea da Tecnologia da Informação e Comunicação (TIC), o problema persiste. Conforme Moreira et al [Moreira et al 2014], o maior número de evasões ainda está relacionado ao público feminino, principalmente nos cursos ligados aárea de TIC, que apresentam o menor percentual de matrículas de estudantes do sexo feminino.…”

Australian Interventions for Women in Computing: Are We Evaluating

“…Over the last twenty years many intervention programs have been conducted, in Australia and elsewhere, to support and enable females to move beyond the obstacles which had previously prevented them from being part of the field (see for example Craig, Fisher, Scollary & Singh 1998, Clayton & Lynch 2002, Neilsen & Beekhuyzen 2009Miliszewska & Moore 2010;Ross, Litzler, Cohoon & Sanders 2012, Clayton, Beekhuyzen & Neilsen 2012, Whitney, Gammal, Gee, Mahoney & Simmard 2013.…”