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A revolution is under way in the teaching of computer science in schools in England - but it risks leaving girls and pupils from poorer backgrounds and ethnic minorities behind. That's the conclusion of academics who've studied data about the move from ICT as a national curriculum subject to computer science.
Four years ago, amid general disquiet that ICT was teaching children little more than how Microsoft Office worked, the government took the subject off the national curriculum. The idea was that instead schools should move to offering more rigorous courses in computer science - children would learn to code rather than how to do PowerPoint.
But academics at Roehampton University, who compile an annual study of computing education, have some worrying news. First, just 28% of schools entered pupils for the GCSE in computing in 2015. At A-level, only 24% entered pupils for the qualification.
Then there's the evidence that girls just aren't being persuaded to take an interest - 16% of GCSE computing entrants in 2015 were female and the figure for the A-level was just 8.5% . The qualification is relatively new and more schools - and more girls, took it in 2016 - but female participation was still only 20% for the GCSE and 10% for the A-level.
Why is it girls are not attracted to computer science? Is it some deeply embedded gender bias, or something else?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 23 2016, @06:26AM
It gets to be tiresome as hell. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "Honey can I talk to a technician now?" Sir...I *am* the technician, and have been fixing computers since third grade. And those are the polite ones. I've had people tell me to my face a bunch of variants on "women can't into 'pooter hurr hurr hurr" AS I AM HANDING THEM THEIR LAPTOP WHICH I JUST FIXED.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Friday December 23 2016, @07:03AM
They do that to EVERYONE that doesn't fit the "revenge of the nerds" stereotype. I'm a big hairy biker looking guy so I usually got a variation on the "IDK whether to let him work on my PC or give him my wallet" bullshit, James who worked in the back with me got plain old ignored as they looked for a white nerd to work on their PC because he was black, and the looks of sheer abject horror on the faces of the 3 piece suit types that would come in wanting to hire "the coder that designed the website for (insert local large business)" only for us to pop open the door to her office and show them the bosses 16 year old daughter blasting her techno while she coded websites in Vi was priceless, but was usually followed by her getting 5 minutes of the "honey can you please fetch me the programmer" until she told them in no uncertain terms she was booked for several weeks in advance so they better get to the point as time is money and they were wasting hers.
The moral of the story? Unless you look like your name is Poindexter you are gonna get shit in the IT biz, blame Hollywood for making every computer person in every show some maladjusted ADHD geek stereotype.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @03:32PM
> They do that to EVERYONE that doesn't fit the "revenge of the nerds" stereotype.
That is binary thinking. Just because it happens to you too doesn't mean its applied equally. When will nerds learn that degree matters?
> show them the bosses 16 year old daughter blasting her techno while she coded websites in Vi was priceless,
Wait, what? Your example intended to show that women are equally stereotyped is of a woman being stereotyped?
This is a pattern I see over and over again - people arguing one side of a debate citing an example that contradicts them as if it actually supported their position. What makes people do that? Is it unfocused thinking?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @06:38PM
This is a pattern I see over and over again - people arguing one side of a debate citing an example that contradicts them as if it actually supported their position. What makes people do that? Is it unfocused thinking?
Hairyfeet? Furry thinking? Some kind of challenged thinking? Ah, yes, The Hairyfeet Challenged Thinking!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @10:31AM
Sir...I *am* the technician
Shouldn't it be then the technicianess or something? SCNR :-)
(Score: 2) by tempest on Friday December 23 2016, @03:54PM
Have you tried using a thick Indian accent?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 23 2016, @05:08PM
Yes, actually :) I had a bunch of co-workers both laughing and calling me a racist. "'Ave joo trrried turning joor com-pyoo-ter off and den back on again, sahr? Okay here is what joo doo: joo hold down de following keys: esss, ahhr, dee, zee, and de numbah tooo, and pound on de space bar vif joor head vhile chanting a prayer. Thenk joo for choozing Dell tech sahporrt!'
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Friday December 23 2016, @10:23PM
You just answered why more women are not into computing. I've always felt it was because they realized they had other options than being treated like shit by the men in the field, and then brutally fucking exploited by the suits above. That, and the long ass days, the noise of data centers, and screaming people when something breaks. We could list out all of the bullshit we have to deal with, that women would just not choose to be around.
There's an awful lot of that bullshit in IT, which is a dead and dying field anyways. We're all competing with wage slaves in foreign countries willing to do what we do for the slave wage that barely sustains them. It's not like the scum sucking suits and Owning class give a fuck about us, or what it does to an economy, etc. We're fucking expendable and have *ALWAYS* been seen as a cost by executives, and not a department that produces anything. THEY produce something, in between their liquor fuel'd lunches, but working hard all day to keep platforms up and running isn't production but a cost to be avoided if possible.
So would women want to enter a dead and dying field with a high probability of them encountering a bunch of arrogant monkeys pissing testosterone around everywhere while watching the field be destroyed by outsourcing and toxic corporate paradigms of profit over people?
I'm in the field because my true passion is computing and I'm willing to suffer the idiots around me for the joys of what I do. Then again, I don't have the choices available to me that decently attractive females do.
Seriously, fuck all this bullshit. Backdoors in encryption, the tragic banality of social media leading towards our manipulation by the suits above, locked out hardware, blobs and binaries everywhere.... fuck all this shit.
If I was a decade or so younger and had a decent body I would be a male stripper instead.
Females have more choices then we do. Surprise, surprise, surprise.... they don't choose to be with our bullshit.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.