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Mind the (gender) gap: can a two-hour visit to a hi-tech company change perceptions about computer science?

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Michal SegalovAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Inroads, Volume 2, Issue 3

Pages 64 - 70

https://doi.org/10.1145/2003616.2003637

Published: 31 August 2011 Publication History

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Abstract

This paper presents the "Mind the Gap" initiative that aims to encourage female high school pupils to study computer science (CS) in high school. This is achieved by increasing their awareness to what CS is, and exposing them to the essence of a hi-tech environment and to same gender role models. Female software engineers at Google's Israel R&D Center in collaboration with the Israeli National Center undertook the initiative for computer science teachers. We describe the initiative and its impact on the female pupils' interest in CS. One of our conclusions is that even a short visit to a hi-tech company, in this case - Google, has the potential to change pupils' perception of what CS is and to increase their interest in CS and their desire to study it. One could easily adapt this initiative to other companies and scale it to infl uence a rather large population.

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Lang, C., Craig, A., Fisher, J. and Forgasz, H. (2010). Creating Digital Divas - scaffolding perception change through secondary school and university alliances. ITiCSE 2010, Ankara, Turkey. http://db.grinnell.edu/sigcse/iticse2010/Program/viewAcceptedProposal.asp?sessionType=paper&sessionNumber=31

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Cited By

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Boyle NMarshall KO’Sullivan K(2023)Invisible barriers: how gender and class intersect to impact upon science participation in Irish secondary schoolsInternational Journal of Science Education10.1080/09500693.2023.221468745:18(1532-1551)Online publication date: 31-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2023.2214687
Fussy DIddy HAmani JMkimbili S(2023)Girls’ participation in science education: structural limitations and sustainable alternativesInternational Journal of Science Education10.1080/09500693.2023.218857145:14(1141-1161)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2023.2188571
Karlin MOttenbreit-Leftwich ALiao Y(2022)Building a gender-inclusive secondary computer science program: teacher led and stakeholder supportedComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2022.213128133:1(117-138)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2022.2131281
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Index Terms

Mind the (gender) gap: can a two-hour visit to a hi-tech company change perceptions about computer science?
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        Information science education

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Published In

ACM Inroads Volume 2, Issue 3

September 2011

74 pages

ISSN:2153-2184

EISSN:2153-2192

DOI:10.1145/2003616

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Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 31 August 2011

Published in INROADS Volume 2, Issue 3

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Boyle NMarshall KO’Sullivan K(2023)Invisible barriers: how gender and class intersect to impact upon science participation in Irish secondary schoolsInternational Journal of Science Education10.1080/09500693.2023.221468745:18(1532-1551)Online publication date: 31-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2023.2214687
Fussy DIddy HAmani JMkimbili S(2023)Girls’ participation in science education: structural limitations and sustainable alternativesInternational Journal of Science Education10.1080/09500693.2023.218857145:14(1141-1161)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2023.2188571
Karlin MOttenbreit-Leftwich ALiao Y(2022)Building a gender-inclusive secondary computer science program: teacher led and stakeholder supportedComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2022.213128133:1(117-138)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2022.2131281
Fletcher AMason RCooper G(2021)Helping students get IT: Investigating the longitudinal impacts of IT school outreach in AustraliaProceedings of the 23rd Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3441636.3442312(115-124)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3441636.3442312
Hazzan ORagonis NLapidot THazzan ORagonis NLapidot T(2020)Teaching Methods in Computer Science EducationGuide to Teaching Computer Science10.1007/978-3-030-39360-1_10(181-220)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2020
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Bailie F(2015)Women who make a differenceACM Inroads10.1145/27231706:2(36-43)Online publication date: 29-May-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2723170
Hazzan OLapidot TRagonis NHazzan OLapidot TRagonis N(2015)Teaching Methods in Computer Science EducationGuide to Teaching Computer Science10.1007/978-1-4471-6630-6_7(105-135)Online publication date: 8-Jan-2015
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Zaritsky ABarzilay OLapidot TGal-Ezer JCaspersen MHazzan O(2012)Computer science as a community involvement activityProceedings of the 17th ACM annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education10.1145/2325296.2325381(365-366)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2012
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Assessing the Development of Computer Science Pedagogical Content Knowledge in the TEALS Program (Abstract Only)

Closing the Gender and Underrepresented Minority Gap in CS: UTeach Computer Science Principles AP Assessment Results (Abstract Only)

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