Gender and information communication technology

Information communications technology is used more and more in education, so much so, that it is becoming a ubiquitous resource for supporting students’ learning. Several commentators have, however, raised concerns that socio-economic and cultural factors may mediate access to and use of information communication technology (ICT; e.g. Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition 1989; Jackson, Ervin, Gardner, & Schmitt 2001a; Littleton & Hoyles 2002). Issues of equality of opportunity and access to information and communications technology may thus arise for a number of different groups, for example those of low socio-economic status and ethnic minorities, creating a number of ‘digital divides’ with respect to the take-up, or effective use of, ICTs. Gender is thought to be one such digital divide (Cooper & Weaver 2003; Joiner et al. 2005). However, recently, there have been a number of commentators who have suggested that the gendered digital divide may be diminishing (Losh 2004) or even disappearing (Stanford Internet Study 2000; UCLA Internet Project 2000, 2001, 2003). The aim of this special issue was thus to examine this issue of the gendered digital divide in the use of computer technology. The special issue opens with a review article by Joel Cooper, who unequivocally states that that ‘There is a dramatic digital divide for gender such that women are not reaping the benefits of the technological revolution on a par with men’ (p. 321). This, he suggests, is a ‘pernicious and often overlooked wedge’ (p. 320) that divides, and is a problem, for modern society. In making the case for a digital divide, Cooper points to manifestations of the divide in terms of gendered patterns of engagement with and ownership of computer technology and he also highlights the persistence of females’ computer anxiety over time and across international boundaries. Having presented evidence to suggest that there is a digital divide, Cooper asserts that this divide is ‘multiply determined’ (p. 322) and goes on to consider factors that may facilitate it. Among the factors discussed are the potentially deleterious effects of ‘boy-toy’ computer software and the consequences of girls making personal attributions for computational failures and attributions of effort and luck for computational success. Cooper also speculates that ‘gender stereotypes can have the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy, creating further evidence for the stereotype’ (p. 328) and he presents work on stereotype threat, which suggests that the ‘mere knowledge of a negative stereotype applying to a person’s group can cause that person to perform poorly at a particular task’ (p. 329). Towards the end of the paper, Cooper describes an experimental study specifically designed to explore the effect of stereotype threat on girls’ performance with computers and this work indicates that ‘the mere knowledge of a stereotype that holds that girls are not good at computers causes girls to suffer stress when learning from a computer and leads to decrements in computer performance . . . at least when their identity as females is made salient’ (p. 331). The paper culminates with the development of a model for understanding some of the key factors that create the digital divide for gender. Although Cooper acknowledges that ‘solving the problem of the gender digital divide will not be easy’ (p. x), some specific suggestions for change emerge from the model that he proposes, and he underscores the need to alter stereotypes by attacking the phenomena that support them. One must, however, continually guard against making simplistic overgeneralisations with respect to gender and computing and the ‘digital divide’ for, as in Cooper’s words, ‘social context matters’ (p. 324). The importance of understanding students’ technological engagements in context is a theme that emerges from the paper by Emma Mercier, Brigid Barron and Kathleen O’Connor. These authors used surveys, drawings and interviews to investigate 10–14-yearolds’ perceptions of knowledgeable computer users and their self-perceptions as ‘a computer-type person’. Their findings indicate that students’ engagement in technology is: ‘a complex relationship between