"If gender consciousness is positively related to student self-confidence and ambition, especially for women, institutions of higher learning should consider incorporating gender consciousness raising into IT curricula." [excerpt, p.17]
SLIS Professor Susan Herring and colleague James Marken (Darden College of Education, Old Dominion University) have had an article accepted for publication in the journal Women's Studies (see abstract below).
Women's Studies is published by Taylor & Francis eight times a year. It is an "inter-disciplinary journal that provides a forum for the presentation of scholarship and criticism about women in the fields of literature, history, art, sociology, law, political science, economics, anthropology and the sciences. It also publishes poetry, film and book reviews." [journal website]
Abstract
This study investigates the effects of gender consciousness among students enrolled in IT programs at five U.S. universities. Based on 136 in-depth face-to-face interviews, we assess the overall level of gender consciousness among the IT students, proposing a new distinction between awareness of gender inequity and concern about such inequity, and identify characteristics of students with varying levels of gender consciousness. We then consider the relationship between level of gender consciousness and two self-efficacy measures (self-confidence and ambition) as regards the students' education and future IT careers. Our findings suggest that gender consciousness is related to lived experience, and has positive implications, via the mediating variable of self-efficacy, for women IT students' educational and professional success.
A preprint of the article is available at: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/ws.pdf
Herring, S. C., & Marken, J. (In press, 2008). Implications of gender consciousness for students in information technology. Women's Studies.
Posted December 05, 2007