Women in Computing

Why do we have a lack of women in computing and what can we do to inspire females to pursue their careers in computing?

This blogpost will give some interesting facts and figures which teachers can use to help inspire females! 


Did you know?























In 1985, 37% of all US bachelors in Computer Sciences were women. Only 37% of tech startups have at least one woman on the board of directors. 57% of all professional occupations in the US for 2017 were held by women. The ratio of men to women in engineering is 5:1. 25.5% of Google’s leaders on a global scale are women.

74% of girls express a desire for a career in STEM fields. The numbers for female undergraduates in Computer Science confirm that most of them chose differently. However:
  • Women earn 18% of computer science bachelors in the US.
  • Recent women in stem statistics show that women hold only about 18% of undergraduate computer science degrees. Because computer science research jobs are expected to grow by 19% come 2026, it’s pretty concerning.
  • While girls may be enthusiastic about a career in computer science, not many of them follow that dream. There are many reasons for that, one of them being the lack of inspiring female role models.

Where do we go from here?
 
WiSTEM
  • WiSTEM is short for women in science, technology, engineering, and math. It is an initiative of universities and colleges, such as Harvard, Manchester Community College, Harvey Mudd College, Loyola University Chicago, and many more.
  • The program’s objectives are to familiarize women with the challenges and opportunities faced by women entrepreneurs. It offers mentorship by some of the top male and female business leaders and connects students of STEM to leading venture companies

To download the resource PowerPoint click here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gender Balance

Image
  Computing has become known as a subject for “men” in today’s society, so much so that computing companies are trying to turn the focus to recruiting more women. With saying that, research has shown that over time, the enrolments of women within the computing industry has declined from 32% to 18% in 2004 ( Miliszewska, I., Barker, G., Henderson, F. & Sztendur, E. 2006). A survey that had been carried out for both genders stated that women did not feel supported in their journey of computing courses. Within secondary schools, we as teachers can help with this problem by including more focus on women within the classroom and enforcing a gender balance. Teach Computing offer courses for women to help support their journey within the computing field. Teachers can help influence and encourage secondary pupils within the classroom by making young girls aware that computing is a subject for everyone. It is found that women tend for avoid continuing with computer science in further ed
Read more

Computing Curriculum and inclusion of SEN Pupils:

Image
  According to the Department for Education’s report of 2018, about 14.6% of students in mainstream schools in England are students with special educational needs (SEN). A child or young person (0-25 years old) has special educational needs (SEN) “if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her” (Department for Education, 2015:15).   A number of studies have revealed that, there are some challenges faced when teaching certain elements of the computing curriculum to SEN pupils.   In a 2017 study on teaching computing in special education needs settings in England, 71% of respondents mentioned ‘lack of SEND teaching resources’ as one of the main barriers to teaching computing in schools (Elliott, 2017). Source: Elliott (2017), Strategies for teaching Computer Science to SEND pupils: A number of strategies to enable inclusion of SEN pupils can be used when teaching computer science lessons. Some of these str
Read more

Digital Divide

Image
  United Kingdom Digital divide:                    The concept and research about digital divide emerged during the nineties with the rise of information technology and the inequalities generated by the lack of access to infrastructures such as the internet, with the most used definition being: “a division between people who have access and use of digital media and those who do not” (Dijk, 2020). Enforcing the idea of social strata based on digital accessibility, Ragnedda (Ragnedda, 2016) reinforces it by exploring several academic studies under the lens of Max Webber’s century-old ideology about social divide adapted to the reality of the digital world and its ramifications in terms of economic, cultural, and socio-political aspects. All relevant issues heightened during the first lockdown with schools, educators, and students forced to quickly adapt from physical school-based learning to an online learning format around several E-learning platforms. This change soon highlighted
Read more