This thesis presents a gendered analysis of factors that shape adolescent attitudes to Information Technology (IT) at key stages in their education. It draws on career decision-making literature, psychological self-efficacy literature and some of the more salient feminist literature. Results of interviews with students in junior, middle and senior secondary-schools in Australia are presented alongside those from students studying IT at two universities. This research provides relevant and current insight into reasons why females are not choosing IT courses to the same extent as males, that is not captured in the existing literature. The study found that many young women and men, while being almost equal in IT use and computer literacy, do not consider IT as a valid and independent discipline for future study or as a career. It found that IT rarely entered students’ schematic repertoire of possible future careers, a schematic repertoire strongly influenced by parental opinion at all stages of education. / It found a surprising proportion of the university students interviewed currently studying IT, did not consider this degree as their first choice and were often not convinced that they would continue in the career after graduation. This thesis concluded that while IT is a varied discipline that is unique in its many applications, to many students the discipline is predominately aligned to hardware and associated objects. It found that there is a deficit in student knowledge of what an IT career involves beyond that of the most stereotypical portrayal of a programmer, and that this deficit of knowledge is evident in both genders. It is apparent from this study that the lack of women in IT is not necessarily a gender issue, but an issue embedded in the image of the IT discipline, an image that lacks the status of a professional career.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245131 |
| Creators | Lang, Catherine |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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