[Edu-sig] BBC NEWS UK Education GCSE 'gender gap' sparksconcern

[Kirby Urner]

>Could be. I was concerned more about the overall presentation of "IT" and
>computational literacy issues than gender.
>But strongly suspect there are still all sorts of assumptions/stereotypes
>kicking around about boys vs girls and what IT is and can be. From the school
>curriculum down and from the kids up.. and vice versa
>
>./Jason


We should also be clear that learning to program, having programming
skills, may not translate into a career in IT per se.  What the
'Computer Programming for Everybody' initiative was about (DARPA
funding for Python) was giving entre to the skills and shoptalk for
people in *any* walk of life, not just career ITers of any kind.

The fact that many girls/women are still going into health care is,
by this reasoning, not mutually exclusive from having computer skills.
Indeed, the health care industry is a primary consumer of computer
services, and many of its staff positions require computer skills.
The entertainment and graphic design industries are others.

Classroom teacher is another position sterotypically more open to
women, and here too programming skills may be extremely relevant.
In my neck of the woods, the teacher training colleges are all
about teaching future teachers how to use computer projectors
and use programming in the classroom.

Kirby

PS:  although a programmer by trade, I don't consider myself an
IT person (I'm not an employee of any IT department or division).
I do work in the health care industry however, for a large hospital
system.