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

Introduction It is now generally acknowledged by the government, business, employers, and the education and training sectors that there is an urgent need for improved targeting of information and advice on ICT studies and careers to students, including high school students, with a particular goal to capturing girls' interest. Despite extensive research and numerous practical interventions designed to address the relative dearth of females in ICT, the problem persists. Evidence from around the world suggests that female predominance in undergraduate enrolments notwithstanding (59% in Australia, 55% in America, and greater than 50% in many European Union countries), girls are reluctant to pursue ICT study at tertiary level (Rees, 2001) accounting for 10% to 30% of students in ICT courses and under 20% of employees in ICT-based careers. The under-representation of females in ICT studies and careers results not only in a massive loss of talent for ICT companies and economies, but also in a technology divide that perpetuates disadvantage among women in general and women of low socio-economic status in particular. Initial approaches to reverse this trend centered upon notions of equality and affirmative action since the lack of significant numbers of females in the discipline was seen as inequitable. To alleviate the problem, intervention programs aimed at women have promoted information on technology-related careers, provided experience of computing work, and highlighted female role models. Other initiatives focused on helping women develop skills, attitudes, or background knowledge that they were thought to lack. These affirmative action measures, while commendable in fostering gender equality, were not sufficient in that they often served to reinforce the conceptions of ICT as a masculine domain and, consequently, failed to attract women to ICT. This suggests a need for an alternative approach--a re-conceptualization of ICT into an environment that women would naturally embrace. This article seeks to identify the key ingredients of such an environment drawing on lessons learned from a variety of initiatives aimed at attracting to ICT female students in general and female students from educationally disadvantaged back grounds in particular. It has, as its primary focus, a review of strategies deemed successful in attracting girls to ICT studies during their high school years. Whilst the article takes university-generated initiatives into account, it is generally limited to reviewing those activities involving high school girls. The focus is therefore on ways in which the through-flow of female students from high school to university courses may be improved. The article also describes a small number of programs aimed at attracting adult women to ICT. These programs are included for the way in which they illuminate both the complexity of the problem and the potential for community-focused solutions. Gender-related Issues in ICT Education The difficulty to attract and retain female students in ICT, both in Australia and overseas, has been well recognized. The already low number of female students studying ICT in secondary school tends to decrease further at tertiary level. This situation has often been attributed to gender differences in interests, motivation, experience, personality characteristics, abilities, self-efficacy, and socialization. A report recently compiled by the European Schoolnet and CISCO Systems Inc indicated that, of female students across Britain, France, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands who like studying ICT at high school, most fail to progress those studies to tertiary level or translate their computer competencies into ICT careers (Gras-Velazquez, Joyce & Debry, 2009). According to the same report, the high drop-out rate can be attributed to "lack of support from role models, persistent stereotyped views that the sector is better suited to men, a lack of understanding about what ICT jobs entail, and in some cases, how easy or difficult they find the subject" (Gras-Velazquez et al. …