[Edu-sig] CP4E: an update from the OCN

[Matthias Felleisen]

Art writes: 

  As it happens, my wife recently asked me (it might have sounded
  more like an interrogation to someone else, but we've worked that one out)
  about the degree to which women are participating in the Python community.

  I only have names to go by, but my impression is very little.

  Especially on this list, one might expect otherwise.

  It happens that the only person I know who actually makes a living
  teaching programming (C++ at a college level) is a woman.

You will find many women teaching at the high school level. 

In general, though the "pipeline" shrinks rapidly in high school, droping
from a 30 or 40% participation to around 13% in grad school (or less). If
it's concern, I can dig out the exact studies. 


  Is the participation more diverse than I realize?

  If not, any theories?

  Is this an appropriate topic for discussion here?

  ART

An aside: some of our teachers encouraged us (TeachScheme!) to measure the
effect of our curriculum on girls, because they believe it's highly
encouraging. When we had the same teachers teach the same group of students
last year, we did a qualitative survey. The results:

 * The students expressed a general preference for the TeachScheme!
   curriculum over the AP/C++ curriculum (66% in favor of TeachScheme!). 

 * The more C++ they saw in class, the more they preferred TeachScheme!. 

 * Girls preferred TeachScheme! over C++ at a ratio of 4 to 1. 

My conjecture is, and that has been confirmed informally, that C++ drives
girls away in droves. NSF has created special workshops on retaining girls
at that level. CMU teaches one of them. I don't know whether they have any
success. 

-- Matthias

Matthias Felleisen
Professor of Computer Science
Rice University

 For a new way to look at the world of high school computing, 
       see http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/Teaching/Workshops/

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is 
 about telescopes."	
                                             -- E. W. Dijsktra