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posted by on Friday December 23 2016, @02:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the barbie-dolls-are-a-bad-influence dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 23 2016, @06:33AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 23 2016, @06:33AM (#444962) Journal

    If we find some thing, some area, some interest, in which boys excel over girls, then we must dissuade boys from pursuing that interest? An area of study in which boys are tops, must be discontinued? Especially if it turns out that white wealthy boys do the best, we must shut that study off? WTF?!?!?!

    The gender thing. It has been demonstrated several times that girls are more social, and that they are not risk takers. Boys LIKE to test themselves. When I was growing up, I often did things that were difficult, JUST BECAUSE they were difficult. I did things JUST BECAUSE someone told me that I couldn't do it. I enjoyed challenges. Girls? Not so much.

    http://jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/1/33.full.pdf [oxfordjournals.org]

    It doesn't matter how many studies you read - they all come up the same. Boys like risk and challenge - girls not so much.

    Girls aren't going to flock to courses of study which they feel that they are likely to fail. Boys? Better to try and fail, than not to ever try.

    Long story short, we should NOT expect a gender balance in every field of study, or field of work. Males and females are wired differently. They don't see the world in the same way.

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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @06:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @06:41AM (#444965)

    > If we find some thing, some area, some interest, in which boys excel over girls, then we must dissuade boys from pursuing that interest?

    Your constant victimhood mentality is so damn tiring.
    You are not a special snowflake. Just because everybody's catered to you for most of your life doesn't mean you deserved it.
    When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Put on your big boy pants and stop whinging.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:04AM (#444972)

      And just because someone feels oppressed doesn't mean they actually are. It seems many people are suffering from the illusion of mass inequality, or at the very least, are unable to prove that this mass inequality actually exists with hard, objective science.

    • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 23 2016, @07:07AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 23 2016, @07:07AM (#444973) Journal

      You sound like the whiner here. Because I am more self assured than you are, you attribute that to some kind of "privilege". You, the brain damaged child, point at the school's star athletes, and complain that they can do things that you can't. You, the genetically deformed, complain that the children who are straight, tall, and strong are "privileged". Your warped mind cannot accept that your are a second place, second class nobody. You ARE the special snowflake here, and you expect me to conform to your expectations and limitations.

      Stop sniveling.

      I don't wear "big boy pants". That's what children move up to as they leave toddler hood behind. I suggest that you take off your "big boy pants", and put on a pair of jeans, and a pair of boots. Get your ass out the door, and toughen yourself up a little.

      Victimhood. You whine and snivel about being victimized, and when I reasonably point out that it's not me who victimizes you, you scream about "privilege".

      Here's some good advice for a whiner like you: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OQ2jEimNmto/hqdefault.jpg [ytimg.com]

      After that, you can brush up on your manual - http://thedeclination.com/common-sjw-phrases-translated-to-english/ [thedeclination.com]

      Then, you can skip all the intermediate steps, and just get to calling me a racist, mysogenist, and whatever else you care to call me.

      And - at the end of the day - no one pays you any mind. So, go back and have another good cry as you fall asleep, you miserable shit.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @03:37PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @03:37PM (#445044)

        > Because I am more self assured than you are,

        That must be why you pulled a trump and went all thin-skinned attack everything you can possibly think of in response to an AC.

        Yeah, you are bigly self-assured!!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:33PM (#445113)

        Classic!
        You literally replied in the most insecure possible way -- "I'm not a whiner, you're a whiner!"
        Are you nine years old?

        So entertaining! You win the prize for this month's most unintentionally revealing post.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:19PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:19PM (#445168)

        Your warped mind cannot accept that your are a second place, second class nobody. You ARE the special snowflake here

        Evidently Runaway just got trolled pretty good. He couldn't handle it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @09:10AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @09:10AM (#444991)

      ...special snowflake...privilege...oppression...big boy pants...

      You're triggering me with your micro-aggressions!

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 23 2016, @12:58PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday December 23 2016, @12:58PM (#445021) Journal

    I don't personally care if there's a gender imbalance in this or any other profession. I am not concerned that most pre-K teachers are women, nor that most CompSci grads are men.

    As a purely intellectual exercise, then, why is there such a disparity in CompSci? It's not because university programs and companies don't go out of their way to recruit women. They do. But in a discipline that seems to me quite gender neutral in and of itself, there is little appeal in it for women (American ones, at least). There are other disciplines like medicine or law that feel equally gender neutral, and which were previously male-dominated, but which now have a much more equal share of men and women. It was previously said of those professions, too, that it was natural for them to be dominated by men because women weren't rational enough, or able to control their emotions enough, or couldn't bear the indelicacy of blood and guts.

    It doesn't matter one whit in and of itself if there were few women in medicine, law, or CompSci if they simply weren't interested in those areas, and they could perfectly well without barriers enter them if they chose to. Anything else would be unjust because everyone ought to have equal opportunity in the Pursuit of Happiness.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 23 2016, @07:19PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 23 2016, @07:19PM (#445169) Journal

      ^^ THIS ^^

      Don't stand in any woman's way - whether she wants to do computer science, become a Marine Corps combat commander, or if she chooses to stay at home, and raise babies. Just don't presume to tell the woman what she may do, or can do, or is prohibited from doing.

      O'bummer and the DNC don't want women to stay home and raise babies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksHIlbIWhgQ [youtube.com]

    • (Score: 2) by Nollij on Friday December 23 2016, @09:36PM

      by Nollij (4559) on Friday December 23 2016, @09:36PM (#445235)

      The question that keeps being raised is why - the studies haven't shown that men are better at it, just that men are far more interested.
      Given that these are high-paying, stable (expanding, even) careers, it does make one wonder why women shun the profession in such numbers.
      It's also pretty clear that this disinterest takes hold long before the college level.

      Strangely, even though there are countless industries that rely on directly marketing to young women and girls, I haven't seen any of them weigh in on the subject.
      Seems to me that companies that exist to sell glittery lip gloss would know something about how to sell this to teen (and even pre-teen) girls.