Jane Abbiss

Rethinking the ‘problem’ of gender and IT schooling: discourses in literature

A review of the international research literature pertaining to gender and information technology (IT) schooling reveals changing ideas about what constitutes a gender problem. Much of the literature is concerned with gender differences in computer uses and interests and perceived disadvantages accruing to females as a result of these differences. This reflects and contributes to a dominant liberal equity discourse. Growing awareness of the limitations of earlier research, the changing nature of IT schooling, contradictions in students’ computer interests and dissatisfaction with simplistic explanations has led, however, to post‐structural rethinking and the emergence of a critical discourse. Assumptions of essential differences and deficit ways of thinking are challenged. Persistent gender differences in IT use are explored in their social complexity and the very notion that there is a gender problem is problematised. This presents a different and ultimately more satisfying way of thinking about the problem of gender and IT schooling.

Gendering the ICT curriculum: The paradox of choice

This paper looks at the ICT (information and communication technology) curriculum in New Zealand secondary schools and gendered participation patterns in different specialist ICT subjects. New Zealand has a permissive ICT curriculum, comprising a variety of subjects and characterised by choice and variation in the curriculum in practice at the local level. The data that are reported include results of (i) a national questionnaire survey of secondary schools, and (ii) a qualitative case study conducted in a large, co-educational New Zealand secondary school and involving classroom observations and interviews with teachers and students. It is suggested that the permissiveness of the curriculum, which ostensibly caters for the needs of students by providing choices, may, in some circumstances, effectively reinforce gender stereotypes relating to computer interests and practices. This is a paradox of choice. Questions are raised about the nature of the ICT curriculum in New Zealand and how it may contribute to or challenge gender stereotypes, future curriculum developments and, more broadly, how we can account for persistent gendered participation patterns in ICT subjects in schools.

Boys and machines: gendered computer identities, regulation and resistance

Students negotiate their masculine and feminine identities as students of information and communication technology (ICT) and computer users as they participate in specialist ICT courses and in other areas of their lives. As they negotiate these roles, they are established in relations of power and authority with the technology and with each other. Case study research relating to students’ experiences in specialist computer courses in a New Zealand secondary school reveals a complex and dynamic picture of identity construction and subjectivity. In constructing their personal identities as computer users, males and females experience the regulatory forces of gender relations while at the same time resisting stereotypes. Students make conscious and pragmatic decisions to pursue particular computing courses and paths as they balance their options in the realisation of their possible selves as computer users and adults in the world of work. These decisions signify regulation by and resistance to gendered power relations.

Students’ Learning Experiences

Every day, young people go to school, participate in classes and school activities, and have learning experiences. The idea that students have learning experiences seems simple enough, but what do we mean when we talk of this? My purpose in writing this chapter is to focus on students’ learning experiences and to engage with different theoretical perspectives that might help teachers and others understand what happens for children and young people in schools.