Gender aspects of computer science education III

In my third and last article I like to mention a publication, which looks a bit broader on stategies and effects to increase the number of women in STEM fields in Germany.

Frauen in Informatik

Welchen Einfluss haben inhaltliche Gestaltung, Flexibilisierung und Anwendungsbezug der Studiengänge auf den Frauenanteil?

by Julius-David Friedrich et al. Link

There are a lot of aspects I could write about. But the authors write about mono-educational programs, too, and say the perception of those is mixed. One quote:

Gegen einen Erfolg spricht hingegen die strukturelle Intransparenz, die durch die Monoedukation hervorgerufen wurde: Durch den Ausschluss von Männern provoziert der Studiengang und ruft Neid und Abwertung als typische Reaktion hervor. Die Außendarstellung des Studienganges führte ebenfalls zu Problemen, da die Studentinnen beispielsweise als „neue Elite“ oder „Superwomen“ dargestellt wurden, was für die Frauen nicht ambivalenzfrei war.

There are some positive effects but it depends on several aspects, also having mixed-gender degrees in parallel seem to be important.

I think it’s interesting how many factors come into play. I doubt I would have considerd a women’s only program the time I started college. It was important I can study in Dresden and it had to do with computer science. I would not have chosen a different city because it’s women-only school. But I do find women’s programs interesting, because I realize how narrow my female network in computer science is. This matters for friendship, but also for professional development and jobs.

Anyway, I find this research highly interesting and will watch out if there are new outcomes.

This is day 61 of my #100daystooffload series, a challenge to write 100 blog posts in a year.