Culture and Environment as Determinants of Women's Participation in Computing: Revealing the "Women-CS Fit"
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Computer Science Computing Diversity Engineering Diversity |
| Special Topic(s): |
Women and Information Technology |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Educational Research Paper |
| Media Type: |
Audio |
| Author(s): |
Carol Frieze Lenore Blum M. Bernardine Dias Orit Hazzan |
| Description: | There are some arguments that suggest women need academic hand-holding, such as a "female friendly" curriculum, in order for them to participate and be successful in computer science and related fields. Then there are other arguments that suggest we need to change the field to suit women or help women adjust to the field. In this paper we present a different perspective that shows none of these may be necessary. The "Women-CS Fit" is already there! Specifically, under certain cultural and environmental conditions we can see that women fit very well into computing fields and what we have been attributing to gender is actually the result of cultural and environmental conditions. The reasons for women participating in -- or not participating in -- the field of computer science have little to do with gender and a lot to do with culture. In other words, we need to recognize that this is a cultural issue, and an issue that concerns us all. Appropriate local interventions in the micro-culture can have large effect. This argument is illustrated in this paper by three case studies. |
| Rating: | No Rating |
| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | gender computer science fit factors participation engagement culture information technology pedagogical strategies israel international studies reviewed |
| Usage Tip | |
| Related ABET Criteria: |
Academic Achievement Attitude Engagement |
| Intervention(s): |
Goals Skill enhancement |
| Use of Resource: |
ACM SIGCSE Bulletin archive Volume 38 , Issue 1 (March 2006) SESSION: Gender issues Pages: 22 - 26 Year of Publication: 2006 ISSN:0097-8418 |
| Difficulty: |
Medium |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | March 2006 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1124706.1121351 |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC)
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