Gender and computers: understanding the digital divide

Gender and Computers presents evidence that shows that girls and young women are being left behind on the road to information technology. This book not only documents the digital divide but also provides guideposts to overcoming it. Social psychological theories and data are brought to bear on understanding the societal and environmental roots of the divide. Remedies ranging from family dynamics to teacher-student interactions to the controversial question of the gender organization of schools and school systems are proposed. Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide: • considers the authors' original research as well as recently published work by other leading scholars; • documents that girls are at a marked disadvantage in their ability to learn about and profit from information technology in our educational system; • sets the problem of computer anxiety in a rich context of social psychological theories, including stereotype threat, self-fulfilling prophecy, social comparison and attribution theory; and • offers suggestions that parents, teachers, and school systems can implement to overcome the digital divide. The book is intended to appeal to students and researchers in the social and behavioral sciences, education, human factors, and computer science interested in gender differences in general, and in human-computer interaction, in particular. The authors' goal is to stimulate social scientists and educators to further research this topic to generate solutions to the problem.