Universities Weblog

Though seemingly on its way to a balance in the early 1980s, computer science now has "one of the least gender-balanced fields in American society." With current studies showing that the percentage of women who receive bachelor's degrees in computer science has risen only 8% since 1976, many in the field—and in the classroom—are worried.

The Boston Globe reports:

In a year of heated debate about why there aren't more women in science, the conversation has focused largely on discrimination, the conflicts between the time demands of the scientific career track and family life, and what Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers famously dubbed ''intrinsic Aptitude."

But the history of computer science demonstrates that more elusive cultural factors can have a major impact on a field's ability to attract women.

As the popularity of computer science soared in the first half of the 1980s, many university departments became overburdened and more competitive, some professors argue. Introductory classes were taught in a way that emphasized technical minutiae over a broader sense of what was important and exciting about the field, a style catering to the diehard — and overwhelmingly male — techies rather than curious new recruits. The last thing educators, besieged by students, worried about was attracting more, so they didn't see the need to combat the image that took root in popular culture of the male computer geek with poor hygiene and glazed eyes.Is this an alarming trend? Are the reasons for this gap quantifiable? Is this a question of nature, nurture, or both? It continues to be a heated debate with seemingly no end in sight.

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