Attracting girls to ICT

Dr Iwona Miliszewska
Associate Professor
Head of School of Engineering and Science
Victoria University

Aidan Moore
PhD candidate
Victoria University

This paper reviews a range of strategies aimed at improving female participation in ICT studies and careers and illuminates the crossovers that occur as governments, universities, industry and other actors seek effective solutions to a dilemma that exceeds a simple dichotomy of gender and technology.

Whilst the particular milieu for which this review has been conducted—an educationally and otherwise disadvantaged area of Melbourne, Australia—entails a focus on girls from families with low socio-economic status, and on those exposed to educational disadvantage, the ‘problem’ of girls and technology is by no means limited to those groups.

The review aimed to assist secondary-level educators, educational authorities, ICT industry and ICT policy developers in their efforts to attract more girls to ICT studies.