Computer Science: Where (and why) have all the women gone?

Abstract

Like other post-secondary institutions in North America, Athabasca University has not been successful in either recruiting or retaining women to its Computing and Information Science programmes. The gradual decline in women’s participation has generally been attributed to the hostile masculine ‘culture’ of the discipline. The current study, through indepth interviews with 19 female and 19 male computer science students, explores notions of the computing ‘culture’ and its perceived impact on women’s place in computer science as well as its effects on the discipline.