Changing Girls' Attitudes About Computers

April 12, 2000

By PAMELA MENDELS

Changing Girls' Attitudes About Computers
f there is to be equality of the sexes in the world of information technology, educators and others need to make wide-ranging changes in how girls are taught about and exposed to computers, a new report suggests.
The report, 18 months in the making, was released Tuesday in Washington by a commission of the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, which funds educational programs benefitting women and girls. The 14-member commission was headed by Sherry Turkle, a sociology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology known for her studies on computers and identity, and Patricia Diaz Dennis, a telecommunications industry executive and a former member of the Federal Communications Commission.
"You have one area of the economy and culture that is growing the fastest, that most people would consider the engine of the new economy," Turkle said in a telephone interview Monday. "And you have fewer and fewer women who are going to be the technically savvy corps for that engine. That's bad."
The 102-page report, "Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age," recommends a number of ways that girls could be encouraged to take an interest in technology. If the changes work, the report suggests, the result will be not only a technology work force that includes more women, but a more inclusive computer culture.
Among the recommendations are these:

Teachers should use computers in innovative ways throughout the school curriculum, so that girls who are not necessarily drawn to the computer lab might have their interest in computing sparked in, say, a literature class. They would also learn that computers are becoming vital equipment in a range of disciplines.

Teachers should receive better training not only in incorporating the computer into the classroom, but in ensuring that girls as well as boys use the equipment. The report says that teachers need to be sensitive to issues like what happens when groups of students use a computer, because often in such clusters the boys take charge of the machinery while the girls take notes.

Computer games and educational software should display less gender bias.

Initiatives should be launched to combat stereotypes that many girls have about the antisocial nature of computer work.

Support should be given to efforts to start computer clubs and summer-school computer classes for girls.
The report cites several statistics that the commission members, largely educators and computer professionals, found alarming. Last year, only 17 percent of the students who took the easier of the two Advanced Placement computer science exams were girls -- and they generally did not perform as well as the boys. And from the 1980s to the mid-1990s there was a decline in the percentage of undergraduate degrees in computer science awarded to women, to 28 percent from 37 percent.
These numbers are a serious problem for several reasons, said Pamela S. Haag, director of research for the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. Not only do they mean that fewer women are preparing for careers in an important, growing and lucrative field, but that information technology businesses, which complain of a shortage of workers, are missing out on a huge potential labor pool. Moreover, she said, the industry is losing the insights of half the population.
"We want a diversity of perspectives when we are designing new technologies, and if girls are not at the table when the technology is being designed and created, this technology is less likely to speak to all of us," she said.
The report, which was based in part on focus groups involving girls in middle school and high school, said a major problem is that many girls are disenchanted with computing. Many reported a dislike of violent computer games and said they viewed computing jobs as lonely and antisocial. In some cases, the girls said they believed the push by some to enter computer professions was driven largely by materialism. This shows that many girls have deep misconceptions about the field, the report said.

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"The majority of people who work in computer professions are not in front of computer screens doing coding -- but that's the only image these girls have," Turkle said.
At the same time, the report suggests that the girls might be voicing some valid criticisms of current computer culture, and urges a new conversation about gender in the computer world.
"There is this notion that women and girls kind of have to measure up to the existing computer culture, without asking, 'Is that the way we want it to be?" said Yasmin Kafai, a commission member who is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles.
John Vaille, chief executive of the International Society for Technology in Education, welcomed the report, saying it was a worthy contribution to one of the lesser-discussed aspects of the so-called digital divide: the disparity between women and men in mastery of the new technologies. "These are solid recommendations," he said.
But Colleen Cordes, a founding member of the Alliance for Childhood, a group that has argued for far less emphasis on technology in schools, especially in the earlier grades, said that the report got the wrong message from the girls in the focus groups.
Cordes saw their complaints about computer technology as a signal that there is already too fervent a push underway to get more and more people more intensively involved in digital life. "It's a question of balance," she said. "I think things are out of balance, and many of us feel that way. I'm impressed young girls say that -- and they should be paid attention to."
But Turkle said computers have become so important a part of modern life that it is vital that all students be comfortable with the machinery and have a deeper understanding of it.
"Computers, computer modeling and simulations are an integral part of the political process, of the urban planning process, the way organizations function, the way buildings are designed and medical care delivered," she said. "There is no opt-out of how this technology works."

The EDUCATION column is published weekly, on Wednesdays. Click here for a list of links to other columns in the series.
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American Association of University Women Foundation
"Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age"
International Society for Technology in Education
Alliance for Childhood

Pamela Mendels at mendels@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions.

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