A New Challenge For Teachers
By Valerie Giles, Sat Dec 10th
One key challenge educators face is the importance ofencouraging girls to excel in math, science and computer sciencestudies. As technology continues to drive the world of business,those challenged or generally disinterested in science and mathwill be left behind. In fact, that's exactly what's happening.
Although women make up approximately 50% of the general workforce in the U.S., they only represent 9% of workers in thescience and engineering community. With such a low percentage offemale interest, the government is expecting increased workershortages through the first decade of the 21st century for theinformation technology (IT) industry.
The core worker in the IT industry are computer engineers,systems analysts, programmers and computer scientists, whichincludes database administrators, computer support personnel andall other computer scientists. These are all careers that relatedirectly back to high school math and science, in addition tocomputer science studies.
Growth projections by The Bureau of Labor Statistics' indicatethat the current graduation rate of those in undergraduatecomputer, information sciences and technology programs aren'thigh enough to sustain the industry's growth. In addition, theyacknowledged that the even greater decrease of women into thecomputer science pipeline will have a profound effect on theindustry.
These researchers believe that the low representation of womenin computer science at the undergraduate level is inherited fromthe secondary school level, where girls do not participate incomputer science courses and related activities as much as boys.Although girls are often well represented in earlier computingcourses, they shy away from advanced courses. One possiblereason for this is because of the increased focus on thetechnical and math course requirements.
This leads us back to math and science studies in elementary andhigh school, and yet another growing concern within thescientific community.
We currently believe that our nation's future economicprosperity and global competition depends on both scientificprogress and our adaptability in the fields of science,technology and engineering. As our society shifts from aresource-intensive society to a knowledge-intensive economy, itis critical for all of us to develop the knowledge and skillsneeded to contribute to this new community.
With this in mind, knowledge of math and science has nowbecome essential for those pursuing a high-status and well-paidjob in our new technologically advanced workforce.
Again, the science community is concerned that industrygrowth in the early 21st century will far out pace that ofgraduates. Once again, research has suggested that the rootof this problem can be traced back to elementary and high schoolclassrooms.
In going back to the classroom, a study by the NationalAssessment of Education Progress discovered that girls scorebelow the national mean on all science achievement items andexpress negatives attitudes towards science. The studyacknowledged that societal, education and personal factors allcontribute to this funding, but stressed that differences withinthe science classroom may be one of the biggest contributingfactors.
So what factors are discouraging girls from excelling in math,science and computer science studies
