At 22:32 30.03.00 +1000, you wrote: >I just bought and read the book 'Does Jane Compute?' > >It discusses whether children are gender-biased in their use >of computers, whether girls (and boys) 'turn off' computers and >at what age, and what can be done about it. I haven't read the book myself yet but a collegue has told me quite a lot about it. >It concludes that there is a tendancy for girls, around the >early teenage years, to stop using computers by choice. They >continue to use them for specific tasks, but stop experimenting >and playing. >Being (a) a book and (b) a couple of years old now, the >information is out of date. >Do people think this is still the case - current information >only please! but anecdotal is fine - and do people have any >suggestions? hmm, I do reaseach within this field in Norway and it's kind of hard to know whats really going on. For my masterthesis I was involved in a project that studied girls at the age of 14 -16 and their use of computers. And well, in many ways, what we found was that there was tendency among girls to stop playing with the computer at some point and just learn the 'useful' tasks. And a lot of them did not experiment with the computer 'cause they were afraid that they might do somehting wrong. In my masterthesis, which was called From Spice Girls to Cyber Girls, I focused on the girls that were entusistic and clever users. What I did find among them was that they had all started using a computer at an early age, had good access to computers at home (none of them had elder brothers that occupied the machine..) And last but not least they looked at the computer as something they could play with. The girls became confidents userers at an early age, were not affraid of experimenting and learned by trying out. Today I'm working on my phd. which is supposed to be about female 'hackers', I put hackers in brackets 'cause I'm not really looking for hackers (there aren't a lot female hackers in Norway anyway) but girls og females that are interersted in computing, spend a lot of time in front of computers, are entusiastic and clever a.s.o. In many ways I find the same here. What I can see from Norway is that things in many ways are about to change. I go to computerparties, parties where computer enthusiast bring their computers and spend time togeter. (most of the particiants are young, from the age of 15 to 25/30. The biggest one is called The Gathering, last year 4500 ppl were participating, think it got a place in guiness book of record as the bigges temoral network ever) ... anyway, at these parties more and more girls are joing. ... a very positiv change. But it still looks like the major amount of the girls do other things on the computers than some of the boys do.... It's a lot of chatting. but at the same time, the boys coming to these parties these day do not program and make demos as they used to do but are mainly occupied with games like quake. hmmm... I don't know if this made any sense. It's hard trying to give a short version of things like this. The picture is always a lot more complicated. ...and well the mail is not very thought through, so do not attack me if it looks like I jump to conclusions please;) >As the book points out, the problem isn't just 'a shortage of >female computer programmers'. The problem is that these girls >will leave school and suddenly discover that 75% or more of >the available jobs require them to be comfortable around >computers. I think the picture is changing.... ppl I talk with that work as teachers say the girls become more an more comfortable. Regards hege > > >Jenn V. >-- > "We're repairing the coolant loop of a nuclear fusion reactor. > This is women's work!" > Helix, Freefall. http://www.purrsia.com/freefall/ > >Jenn Vesperman [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.simegen.com/~jenn > > >_______________________________________________ >issues mailing list >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues _______________________________________ Hege Nordli Senter for teknologi og samfunn NTNU 7491 Trondheim Mobil: 97016876 ICQ:15147522 url: http://www.hf.ntnu.no/itk/sts_nordli/sts_nordli3.htm for tiden: Senter for studier av Teknolgi, Innovasjon og Kultur (TIK) Gaustadalléen 21 0371 Oslo Telfon: 22958797 Faks: 22958845 _______________________________________________ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
