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Women and Information Technology
Research on Underrepresentation
Edited by J. McGrath Cohoon and William Aspray
 Table of Contents and Sample Chapters
Computing remains a heavily male-dominated field even after twenty-five years of extensive efforts to promote female participation. The contributors to Women and Information Technology look at reasons for the persistent gender imbalance in computing and explore some strategies intended to reverse the downward trend. The studies included are rigorous social science investigations; they rely on empirical evidence—not rhetoric, hunches, folk wisdom, or off-the-cuff speculation about supposed innate differences between men and women.
Taking advantage of the recent surge in research in this area, the editors present the latest findings of both qualitative and quantitative studies. Each section begins with an overview of the literature on current research in the field, followed by individual studies. The first section investigates the relationship between gender and information technology among preteens and adolescents, with each study considering what could lead girls' interest in computing to diverge from boys'; the second section, on higher education, includes a nationwide study of computing programs and a cross-national comparison of computing education; the final section, on pathways into the IT workforce, considers both traditional and nontraditional paths to computing careers.
About the Editors
J. McGrath Cohoon is Assistant Professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia. She is also a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Women and Information Technology.
William Aspray is Bill and Lewis Suit Professor in Information Technologies at the School of Information, University of Texas, Austin. He is the editor (with J. McGrath Cohoon) of Women and Information Technology: Research on Underrepresentation (MIT Press, 2006).
| "This book is an important resource for understanding the issues involved in increasing the presence of women in IT. Only by so informing the conversation will we have a chance to make fundamental changes to the culture and practice of IT."
—Telle Whitney, President, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
"Women can and must help develop the technology upon which we increasingly depend. We need to act, using the best research available, and this book provides the roadmap for action."
—Lucy Sanders, CEO, National Center for Women and Information Technology
"This is an important book that deals with a highly relevant topic: why women are dramatically underrepresented in computer science and what can be done to rectify the situation. The thorough research presented here reinforces the idea that no nation can afford to exclude part of its human capital from important areas of technology."
—Barbara Simons, former President, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
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| Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2007.
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