Narrowing the Digital Divide: The Young Women Leaders Program HerStory Project

Research suggests that girls are at especial disadvantage in the field of informational technology and are less likely than boys to take courses or seek out careers in this area. The Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP), a mentoring program at the University of Virginia that pairs at-risk middle school girls with college women for a year of mentoring, developed the YWLP HerStory project to engage middle school girls in informational technology through their development of technology projects focused on psychosocial issues of importance to them. This study reviewed an early version of the YWLP HerStory’s technology curriculum and training for mentors, the revisions made to both, and evaluated the effectiveness of the revisions with a sample of 27 eighth grade girls and their mentors. Findings indicated that participating in the revised curriculum improved girls’ engagement in technology projects, including an 83% completion rate, and modifications to mentor training improved mentor’s grasp of relevant technology and confidence in teaching it to their mentees. Notably, participating eighth grade girls reported that the technology curriculum was fun and expressed an interest in further engagement in using technology platforms to tell their stories. Introduction Middle school is a critical period in girls’ lives as they make the transition to high school and determine the direction of their future academic and vocational careers. Performance in middle school classes begins a trajectory that can either narrow or expand girls’ options for college. A subset of middle school girls, particularly those with significant environmental stressors (e.g., poverty, single-parent family), is at greater risk for educational failure, school dropout, and involvement in delinquent activities (Eccles, Roeser, Wigfield, & Freedman-Doran, 1997). In addition to other disadvantages they face, lowincome youth are less likely to have access to computers or informational technology. This lack of access to technology creates a “digital divide” that widens as youth progress into high school (Matwyshyn, 2003; Sanders, 2005). The digital divide is compounded for low-income girls in particular, since research shows that girls are already at a disadvantage in the field of technology. Although women and minorities are less likely to take high school computing courses than white males (Burke & Mattis, 2007; Sanders), 2 VA Engage Journal, Vol. 1 [2011], Art. 3 http://scholarship.richmond. edu/vaej/vol1/iss1/3 researchers focused on addressing this divide have found that teaching computing and information technology in a way that builds on the interests and needs of women and minority students can increase technology’s appeal to these students (Cohoon & Aspray, 2006). Furthermore, more recent studies show that females have more positive attitudes towards using technology when they learn in cooperative groups (Spector, 2008). Teaching technology within a mentoring program may be one way of closing the digital divide for adolescent girls. Studies have found an association between mentoring relationships and positive outcomes for youth, including reduced drug and alcohol use, better peer and family relationships, improved academic performance, attitudes, and behavior, and an increase in the likelihood of attending college (Dubois & Karcher, 2005). Unfortunately, there is little research on the value of using mentoring as an avenue for directly addressing the digital divide for low-income adolescent girls. The Young Women Leaders Program. The Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP) at the University of Virginia is an after-school mentoring program that pairs college women with at-risk seventh grade girls for an academic year (Lawrence, Levy, Martin, & Strother-Taylor, 2008). Girls are nominated for the program by their teachers, guidance counselors, and school administrators as young women who are deemed at risk academically, socially and/or emotionally and would benefit from a mentoring relationship. Interested college women complete an application and interview prior to being selected to be mentors. Mentor training occurs through a two-hour workshop prior to being assigned a mentor and a two-semester course on theory and research on issues facing adolescent girls and best practices in mentoring while they are mentoring. Matches are based on mutual interests and compatible schedules. Mentoring pairs meet for two hours a week in a group format with five to eight other pairs and a group facilitator, and four hours a month one-on one. Group sessions follow a research-based group curriculum that cultivates the girls’ competence, connection and autonomy, and supports their academic, social and emotional development (Lawrence, Sovik-Johnston, Roberts, & Thorndike, 2009). The curriculum introduces academic and interpersonal skills that are useful for middle school girl development (e.g., organizing homework, problem solving, creating support teams) and includes 3 Newton et al.: Narrowing the Digital Divide Published by UR Scholarship Repository, 2011 opportunities for them to develop and participate in leadership service projects in their school and community (e.g., appreciation dinner, school legacy project). Since 1997, YWLP has mentored over 1500 middle school girls and trained over 1500 college women mentors in Virginia and supported the establishment of 12 “sister sites” at various colleges and communities in the United States and Africa. In response to mentee interest in continuing in YWLP during their eighth grade year, faculty and students at the University of Virginia developed the YWLP HerStory project in 2007. The curriculum is designed to extend the successful seventh grade mentoring program by offering the girls a second year of mentoring with college women that is specifically focused on the applications of computing and informational technology to their lives (e.g., digital storytelling). Overview of the YWLP HerStory Curriculum The primary objective of the YWLP HerStory project is to introduce informational technology to eighth grade girls within the context of a supportive mentoring relationship. Similar to the original YWLP format, each eighth grade girl (Little Sister) is paired with a female college mentor (Big Sister) for the academic year and participates in both one-on-one mentoring (four hours a month) and group mentoring (two hours a week). During group time six to eight pairs and an undergraduate or graduate student facilitator follow the YWLP HerStory curriculum that teaches technology as a platform to support girls’ leadership development while focusing on salient issues facing adolescent girls (e.g., relational aggression, dating safety, appreciating diversity; Lawrence, Vierbuchen, Stout, & Leyton, 2010). More specifically, the curriculum provides opportunities for the girls to use various technology platforms (e.g., Power Point, digital storytelling, video recording) to develop their “voice” on issues relevant to their lives. Individually and in the group, the mentors teach their mentees these technology platforms and then support their mentees as they create digital stories about themselves or an issue of particular importance to them. During the first semester, the primary technology focus is on the girls each developing a technology project using the program PhotoStory, a digital storytelling program that allows users to create a slide show using photos, voice recording, and music. During the second semester, the girls learn to use more sophisticated technology (e.g., video recording) as a technology platform for telling a story. Each 4 VA Engage Journal, Vol. 1 [2011], Art. 3 http://scholarship.richmond. edu/vaej/vol1/iss1/3 girl uses flip video cameras to film the story of a woman leader from their community who they think offers insight on an issue they feel is important to adolescent girls, and then video editing software to create a short film about their topic. Flip Cams are palm-sized video cameras that record, zoom, and play back instant videos through simple application. Current Project The current project focuses on the development and evaluation of the YWLP HerStory project by two teams of undergraduate students in the Jefferson Public Citizen (JPC) program at the University of Virginia. Through a competitive application process the JPC program awards funding for teams of four to six undergraduates who propose a community-based research and service project. The first JPC team that focused on the YWLP HerStory project evaluated a pilot of the curriculum during 2009 with 43 middle school girls from four middle schools in Charlottesville, Virginia and found support for the hypothesis that digital storytelling can be an innovative entry point for increasing girls’ interest in information technology (Newton, et al., 2010). However they also concluded that the curriculum should undergo further revision and evaluation because, while the girls’ technology project completion rate was higher than the previous year, it still only reached 60%. In 2010 a second JPC team applied for and received funding to interview mentor and mentee participants in the first study about the curriculum, revise the curriculum and mentor training, and evaluate the changes with another group of middle school girls and their mentors. The focus of the rest of this paper is this second study. Methods Interview with Technology Teacher. In order to determine if including a technology focus in the eighth grade version of YWLP would be supported by the girls’ middle schools, the second JPC conducted an interview with a technology teacher who currently works in one of the county middle schools served by YWLP and has contact with girls in the city schools through extracurricular involvement. When asked about girls and technology, he noted the importance of making it interesting in their lives. He added, however, that there was relatively limited opportunity to do