Gender Research Part One

I did some research tonight on gender and technology. I visited one site position paper. Here are some of the interesting tidbits I discovered:

In 1986, women were 29% of the employed science and technology labour force in Canada.

Chipman and Thomas find that “interests,” which emerge early, are a strong predictor of scientific and technological careers, and that men and women who become scientists are very similar in their interests and vocational values. It appears that either such interests are differentially distributed between the sexes, or some other factors intervene to deter women from such careers.

Attempts have been made to clarify such findings; for example, some studies suggest that boys “call out” more, and teachers respond more to them (Sadker); or that it is particular children, especially those boys who present a discipline difficulty, who get the most attention.

Other researchers have identified a boy-centred “computer culture” growing up in schools or within classrooms. Carmichael, Burnett, Higginson, Moore, and Pollard (1985), who observed computer use in 18 Ontario elementary school classrooms over two years, report some particularly disturbing findings. End-of year tests of computer knowledge showed boys at the junior and intermediate levels had higher average scores than girls. Classroom interactions at the Grade 7 site that produced the largest differences were examined in detail. The researchers reported that girls found the “challenge” assignments the teacher created uninteresting and sometimes missed their computer time because they were worried about completing their other school work. But a greater problem was the behaviour of the boys. “When it comes to computers, they are sharks,” said one girl (p. 83). Aggressive strategies, such as starting to print when it was a girl’s turn to use the keyboard, or telling the teacher if a girl’s disk was left around the classroom, so that it would be locked away for several days as punishment, were reported. There was no sharing of knowledge or materials between the sexes.

Hughes, Brackenridge, Bibby, and Greenhough (1989) found that girl pairs did worse at operating a computer-controlled robot than did boy pairs or mixed pairs. In subsequent individual testing, girls who had first been in a mixed pair did significantly better than girls who had first worked with another girl. Other projects, for example, one in which children write notes for themselves and to one another via a communal computer data base, have successfully involved both girls and boys (Scardamalia et al., 1992).

Individual school boards in Ontario have set up innovative programs, including girls-only math classes, women speakers visiting schools, and career conferences.

http://www.csse.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE18-3/CJE18-3-06Acker.pdf