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PERCEPTIONS ARE DIFFICULT to change. Some are created by our environment, some of them are subconscious, we just grow up with them without questioning them and treat them as normal.
But whether we like it or not, once they’re set, they have a massive impact on what options we believe are available to us and the choices we make.
This applies to a lot of industries, but in the case of computer programming and IT, these biases mean the sector only really sees one main demographic take up roles instead of several. This is problematic when you consider that roughly 4,500 jobs in the sector are currently unfulfilled, and 10,000 more potential jobs could be left unfulfilled in the short-term.
Part of the solution is making the industry as appealing as possible to those who might never have considered it. If you spread the net as wide as possible and show that the industry doesn’t match the stereotypes, it could lead it to a better place.
That’s something Robin Hauser-Reynolds looks at in Code: Debugging the Gender Gap, a documentary which explores this problem.
The film, which is her second time as director and producer, looks at why there is a lack of women and minorities in computer science and what would change if this was addressed. It’s a broad topic that could branch off in a number of different areas, but keeping the focus was vital.
“Our story is about women in computer science, the lack of women in computer science and let’s find out why that’s happening,” explains Hauser-Reynolds. ”And yes, we have to acknowledge that this is an issue for men [and] for people of colour so we do mention that.”
It is a broad subject, and I truly believe that rather than trying to cover everything, it’s better to delve deep [into specific areas].
Finish Line Features, LLC / Vimeo
During the production of Code, one of the surprising facts that she discovered was how the number of women in the industry has fallen in recent years. In the US, the percentage of women in computer programming was around 36% in the 1980s. Fast forward to today and that’s fallen to roughly 18%, a trend you could extend to most parts of the world.
Coding’s history has been filled with numerous women pushing it to the forefront. People like Ada Lovelace who is widely considered to be the world’s first computer programmer, Grace Hopper, the first compiler of a computer programming language have played a major role in making the industry what it is today, but try naming a prominent female figure now and chances are an answer won’t come to mind straight away.
While there are a number of theories behind why this happened, one possible reason Hauser-Reynolds gives is when the stereotype of the computer genius or nerd became popular.
As personal computers began to grow in popularity, so too did the number of films and TV shows depicting programmers as white, middle class, antisocial men. Even though that isn’t a positive for men either, that perception has unintended knock-on effects.
It’s when the whole idea of the hacker came around and there were a lot of films and pop culture that began around the boy computer science. That stereotype in itself began to alienate women. That’s when computer labs began to pop up and women just began to be marginalised.
So what are the possible solutions? For one, greater exposure to these subjects is a major one instead of just assuming that one person will be interested and the other won’t, but it also ties into how boys and girls are brought up. If it’s a case that women aren’t interested in IT, then it’s worth looking at why this is the case and the ways to rectify that.
One option is to bring it into the school curriculum – an initiative that’s will begin in UK schools in September – which can help show how these sectors are but the reasons behind it are greater than just hoping kids will later choose it as a career.
“In the way that everyone should know about economics, really in this day and age, everyone should know a little bit about coding, what it is and how the string of logic works,” she says.
Not everyone is going to be a programmer, not everyone is going to like mathematics, history or geography or languages or writing for that matter, but to change the perception, to make it available to everyone is what’s important, make it available to girls and women, make it available to people of colour because there’s an economic need for it.
That economic need she refers to comes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, which predicts that by 2020, one million programming jobs will be left unfulfilled. But even outside of that, we’re at a point where most of the things we interact with is software and that’s only going to become more prominent as time progresses.
Not only will there be more careers and jobs that will revolve around this, but it makes a lot of sense for everyone to have a working knowledge, even if they don’t ultimately end up in the sector.
There are jobs that we need to fill and so making them accessible and available to more people and one of the ways we can do that is to change the perception towards it… there’re a lot of people who would be really good at it who feel like they don’t belong.
Code: Debugging the Gender Gap will be making its Irish premiere at Inspirefest 2015 on Thursday 18th June.
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Have worked in IT for almost 10 years, and having programming in schools is a no brainer. They started this in some areas of the U.S. over 20 years ago – when I was in school, it was thought to be a big deal that we were taught how to use MS Word and Excel! Programming is a fantastic way to teach logical thinking to a child, even if they never use it again.
Growing up, I knew I liked computers so guessed I’d like programming etc. I never knew how to do it and didn’t know anyone who did it until my first day in college! Luckily it worked out, but out of approx. 230 students who started my course on day 1 – only approx 60 or so graduated.
I believe our biggest issue is not that people think it’s for white males, but that people haven’t a clue what it even is! Exposing people to it at a younger age gives them confidence when deciding to go into the industry, and will reduce our scary drop out rate.
Fix that, and it should go somewhere to plugging the hole.
So much this. I didn’t even know about the different roles on a software team until I got a job in the industry.
Luckily, the penny dropped one day with one of our lecturers and he realised we hadn’t a clue of the different roles and he walked us through the different ones. Never dawned on them to include it in a class before this or us to even ask!
Thankfully he did, and I learned about analysts, and took an elective in a later year accordingly. People need to know that going into IT doesn’t mean you are going to be chained to a desk working out problems in your head all the time. There are roles that involve predominately working with people etc.
I covered programming in secondary school in Australia in 1992-3. It was hugely beneficial and influential.
But it should only be made available to kids that show an aptitude for that kind of thing. I don’t think having another subject that kids suck at is a good idea.
Great idea, but no one with the ability to teach programming to a high standard will do it for a teachers salary.
Totally disagree, I know some great coders who work in tech support and would love a nice teaching number.
I do it at the moment actually. I went back and retrained and now teach coding in a school environment. I love teaching, and love mixing my teaching degree with my computing one. TBH I don’t care so much about a high salary, I love doing work I enjoy. I don’t like maintaining code, but teaching others how to do it, and how to do it well is something I do like.
Also by no means is teaching a “nice easy number”
This ‘knee jerk’ drives me nuts.
The role of education is not to fill the offices and factories of the private sector with some industry specific ability.
Also, why do we think we would be any better at teaching coding than anything else ? What language would you teach ? Will it be useful in 5 years time ?
Perhaps we are confusing ‘programming’ (a useful tool for some) with computer literacy or problem solving (a useful life skill for most).
Much better idea to teach kids to read, write and then think — integrate the latest tools & tech to support these….
As Steve Jobs has pointed out, learning to write code does teach you how to think. It also makes zero difference which language is taught. Once one language is learned, picking up n others is trivially easy. In 1992 I learned SQL, something I b use every day in my job. I also learned pascal, which gave me the basic understanding required to pick up the 7 or 8 languages I have picked up since then.
time to learn noSQL now !
This isn’t a knee jerk reaction – this is a long overdue initiative that is badly needed. Teaching kids coding is a fantastic way to reach logical thinking as I mentioned earlier, even if they never use it.
Saying this isn’t needed and that focus is needed on reading and writing isn’t a great argument. In that case, why teach them wood work or technical graphics?! The world has changed, and the most successful societies adapt accordingly.
Regarding which language to teach – any major language is fine – most are pretty similar anyway and they would only need to understand the basics. We’re not looking to send them directly to industry after secondary school. Java would get my vote!
Dotty, I have. While the various technologies wrapped up in the vague term “nosql” have their place in certain specialised areas, so does the classic RDBMS. That isn’t going to change any time soon. It is important to understand both to understand when each is appropriate.
I don’t think it’s knee jerk either – and I don’t think that sitting 24 (or more) kids down to do coding is the answer.
There’s a lot of value in coding – but it’s not for everyone. Just like dance or music or any craft, it should be something that everyone is exposed to and has an opportunity to follow up. If there is a problem, it’s that there isn’t a chance to follow up or even be exposed to coding in the first place.
As for the idea that education shouldn’t all be about human capital – you’re absolutely right. But education should include human capital to some extent.
Who suggested everyone should be forced to do coding in school?
Teaching the basics to kids – the three Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic – is all fine and dandy but a gentle steer by a progressive teacher to an absorbing mind in the direction of job market realities, dynamics and trends is no bad thing.
How many graduates have wasted years studying for degrees for which no job prospects exist, and ended up pumping gas,washing cars, or tossing burgers to make a buck?
Much frustration of this nature could be avoided by Business Visionaries having a permanent presence on boards contributing to Curriculum input within Education circles.
Ireland with its 9.5% unemployment rate is currently bringing in thousands of skilled folk from overseas to fill IT vacancies. This is a sad indictment of curriculum planning in this country. In fact planning of any sort at Government level in Ireland appears to have major shortcomings.
I mean it’s not as if the Internet Age is just upon us. So, in order to ensure that Ireland continues to be the best little country in which to do business, why not make coding as mandatory in early education as the three Rs?
Replace religion for it.
Replace Irish with it as well and you’d have a Twofer
I don’t think we should get rid of Irish as I think it is important to keep our language alive.Absolutely religion should be replaced.Coding would be an excellent subject to introduce into schools and I would say the examinations would be intriguing indeed.Love to see a project title on coding if I’m honest it be very interesting to see what students come up with.
I did coding for the leaving in 00 as part of a pilot programme with UL. I then got a degree in software development. About 4 years ago I completely switched industries as I truly hated coding, I’m very happy in my current job. I’m not sure this tells us anything but I know I will never write a piece of software again.
Interesting. Coding isn’t going to help manufacturing either.
Sorry John but that is where you are VERY VERY wrong.
You seem to have the view of coding that the “powers that be have” (I’m guessing) – That coding is all about shifting stuff about a screen and interwebbing.
Coding is FUNDAMENTAL to manufacturing – both directly and indirectly.
Running ANY CNC tool depends on GCode – that includes lathes, laser cutters, mills, routers, 3d printers, robotic arms and more.
Coding is essential not just to the internet but to hardware too. Do you think drones fly themselves? Coding is not just in the realm of software but relates MASSIVELY to hardware.
“Internet of Things” is just breaking out of the gimmick area (your fridge telling you your milk is out of date) to truly valuable areas like environmental monitoring and other areas up to and including invaluable real time disaster relief data that can save lives. All of this requires understanding of hardware.
There are also seriously valuable social gains. About two thirds of the world’s population has no internet access. Outernet is one area that can very very cheaply help in that area.
You’ll need a satellite dish, a Raspberry Pi, a DVB-S receiver and (to broadcast) a wifi dongle. A total of about €200 and you’ve done something real in an area of need.
I’m sure you’ll say “but amazon have those drone forklifts” and cite other examples. The reality is that those things are coming, like it or not. In the mean time, let’s do an “apple” on it and create a market that wasn’t there before rather than complaining about impending doom?
What I meant was, and posted poorly, is that everyone can’t be a coder. If evens rushes into it, then we’ll end up with a death of people fur actual manufacturing. Your technical points are fine – indeed we take delivery of another Water Jet CNC machine ourselves shortly – but try finding a qualified welder or skilled fitter: in short supply. Not to mention carpenters in the UK, where I see £22 an hour on offer on the last week. …the point I’m making is all the eggs in one basket is not the answer.
oh and I have a pc mad child who’s attended CoderDoJo, so I do see the attraction.
I may never code again but I do have the ability to understand the computer I use in my new job everyday and to fix any issues that arise. While coding should probably be an elective basic computing should be mandatory for everyone in this day and age.
Cool – Personally I reckon it’s about opportunity – so that you’re pc mad kid gets a chance to do what they are interested in!
To that end, I don’t think our education system is the place. BRILLIANT initiatives like coderdojo deserve to be supported so that kids can get into what they are actually interested in and attracted to.
So how do you want introduce advanced automation to the manufacturing industry? Carrier pigeons just don’t have the right bandwidth!
I’m 29 and was told there was no point in doing computers in secondary school as they were only a fad…
The problem is that teachers’ only exposure to other professions in their work life is by meeting parents of school kids. And maybe the odd social worker.
Career advice to kids should maybe be via a voluntary panel (of parents) who could meet with children with an interest in trades or professions closely related a panel member.
Teachers acting as guidance counsellors tend to have no more skills than to perform an aptitude test and assist in filling out CAO forms
Alan, I don’t think your first comment is true at all really – but I agree that career guidance is weak and that your suggestion might actually have some value.
I am not necessarily poking at teachers. While a teacher can only give limited insight into the life of eg a medical professional, the same would hold true for me as an IT professional in advising a child what the life of a firefighter.
Where did you get that fact from? I worked as an engineer before becoming a teacher and I know many other teachers that had a different career before teaching
Yes – some teachers may have experience of another profession, but unlikely more than one
If one of your students asks about becoming an engineer, you can quietly say “bingo” to yourself. But how useful would your advice be (or indeed mine be) if they wanted to get into BioPharma
Come off it Alan – how far does that argument stretch?
SCO Electrical….did you go back and smack that teacher? I hate when I see kids ambition deflated by the limitations of others.
I heard that one a couple of times too. Unfortunately no one realized that implementing process control requires one to use programming skills. Thankfully I managed to get a handle on programming. Still don’t consider myself a programmer, but I can’t deny how important it is!
Coding should be as compulsory as Irish as education tool and it will have more career prospects in the global 21st century economy. Teaching Resources should be diverted despite views of the Peig Sayers lobby.
It’s always easy to make the Irish language the scapegoat for all our education problems, instead of focusing on lack of resources, disadvantaged children going to school hungry, a comparatively short school term in comparison to other countries, inadequately trained teachers particularly primary school teachers who only receive 3 years training and excessively large class sizes. Why don’t you remove art, history, geography and music from schools while you’re at it I’ve never found them particularly useful in helping me get a job, although I actually would remove religion from the curriculum.
primary teachers train for four years?
because. it should be elective, not mandatory, that’s the difference. Complusion hasn’t, and won’t, save it or promote it. Take the topic of this thread: Irish is not relevant to coding: but you can’t access 3rd Level without it. Now that’s not only dumb, but discriminatory.
Only recently..the 1st batch of 4 yr degree primary teachers graduate 2016?
It should be offered as a choice subject in school. Religion could be scrapped for it.
Google coderdojo, it’s a free coding class for young people aged between 8-18. It’s available in most towns.
It is hilarious that so many people think religion has a place in school, despite the huge number of facilities for religious instruction outside of school, and yet think coding – something directly useful to career and development – should be relegated to out if hours learning.
I think coding is a brilliant way for anyone at any age to learn, particularly troubleshooting techniques.
I’m not convinced that having it in schools is the answer though. Tons of kids just this weekend headed for the RDS to show their #coolestprojects work.
A chance to code because kids and adults are interested in it: yes.
Kids being in a typical classroom environment as it current;y stands: no.
And that speaks more to the typical education paradigm than whether coding should be part of a curriculum.
Why is it when there are fewer women in a particular industry it becomes topical to actively recruit more but not the other way around? How come no one tries to even out the gender problem in teaching, nursing, etc where men are under representative. Personally I think it more strange that kids in a mixed school can go through all of their national school education without one single make teacher
Its already happening i some schools. Quick example, there is a new school in the west of Dublin teaching Scratch Jr. to its Senior infants and basic programming techniques to its Junior infants with little devices called beebots.
Definitely the way forward.
I live in the south east my eldest is 30 and the secondary school he attended taught computing and coding in conjunction with UL. He was taught coding by a very enthusiastic teacher and as a result my son went on to gain a degree in IT. Since moving to Canada he is offered jobs on a monthly basis such is the shortage of expertise in the industry. My youngest had the same teacher and is now following in his brothers footsteps and just finished his second year in game design. I believe it should be taught in schools, the basics at primary and if the student has an aptitude then they should be able to choose it as a subject in secondary.
When Computing (not just coding) is brought into schools, it will help enhance other areas of learning, namely mathematics and problem solving (numeracy), English and the ability to analyse syntax for errors (increasing literacy), and developing cross curricular links. Design should also play a major part, as in how to plan, work out and execute a brief/project in a specific time frame (again problem solving, but also project management). As someone who studied as an Art Teacher, coding and programming offer an awful lot, and as long as there is basic computer equipment, it is easy enough to teach. There are some amazing free learning tools out there in the likes of code school and Codecademy. Code School’s “rails for zombies” even gives you a step by step guide how to build a twitter clone. Other online tools, such as team treehouse, basically teach you things, like how to build snapchat. There is so much out there online, that those who want to learn it will, but many could do with the exposure of being given the opportunity to engage with something they would not come across themselves, either through lack of a family member or sibling with knowledge of the area, or just not knowing it si something that could be done.
I personally think our curriculum needs to be changed. I would love to see nutrition on it too. As for the coding, it’s a brilliant idea. My 12 year old attends the local coder dojo and he loves it. It’s a great club that rely on donations, donated equipment and time given by the volunteer mentors. It has become very popular since we started as we were able to attend weekly but to accommodate the growing number you can only attend fortnightly. Check out https://coderdojo.com
The author needs to read some Susan Pinker. The fall was due to the retiring of a series of failed initiatives to get women into IT in b the 80s and 90s. The women attracted by the initiatives all left the field after a few years on the job and resented being pushed into a career that did not interest them. They were perfectly competent, just did not care for it. If lots of women don’t wish to pursue technical roles, perhaps the first step should be to understand why thar is.
I have worked in software for several years now and I think coding in secondary schools will only useful for those students who have an interest in it and an aptitude for it, who will definitely by in the minority. Secondary school is about general education, not training for a specific industry. Also, when I was leaving school in the late nineties there was a big push for students to get into the booming construction industry. Ten years later it collapsed. Jobs in a sector now is no indication of what the future will be like.
A terrible idea! The system of religion and Irish over shadowing anything that could help the country prosper is much better. I see the amount of wasted time children here spend on this vanity project while children aged 8 – 10 from Estonia to China are already ahead of us in global terms. anuas yhe a chaomhnú is not an educational strategy.
Coding does take place in schools including Primary Schools, Scratch is the language that is used in a most of them….
Let’s code our asses off until the ‘Singularity’… Sure, we would be writing the most impressive of stuff using ground-breaking interfaces, only to create PC A, the first junior software engineer with blood type 1-0.
Yes we should…..and yes we can. http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/computer-science-education-coders-technology-ciaran-cannon-992312-Jul2013/
To be fair Ciaran, and I don’t mean this to be too harsh, but there are a few places in Ireland who are already doing such things and I’m not sure there really is sufficient support for them.
I absolutely applaud your continued efforts wrt tech in Ireland. But There are several groups around Ireland who have recognised that coding is not an isolated thing and work towards the interface of hardware and software – bits and atoms – through makerspaces around the country.
Students & researchers from UL’s architecture dept run FabLab Limerick. In Manorhamilton another group have been struggling to get all the equipment together for a fablab. 2 girls in Dublin kicked one off years ago but it seems the will to keep it open to the public got lost somewhere – I suspect someone said “we can’t insure you for that”
On top of that there are other, even longer standing makerspaces around the country like TOG hackerspace in Dublin or 091 labs in Galway.
In fact, TOG are the ones who run the Dublin Maker event each year. I’m pretty sure they keep the doors open to all and sundry to apply to show their projects (I know they do an open call) but are limited in space.
The majority of those who display there are showing what people can do with limited resources. If you’ve been there before I’m sure you will have recognised hardware, software and the interface between the two.
If Ireland is serious about tech and serious about fostering these talents, then we need to be providing maker/hackerspaces and/or fablabs (which should ALWAYS have an ethos and not be limited to a specific set of equipment & resources) in a similar but obviously more limited and supervised way to libraries.
I’ve submitted this idea to #talktojoan – I hope it gets some consideration. Hell, if there was even a pilot I’d come home and work for free for a month (or whatever I can afford) to help set up and do training in one.
The cost – put one in Dublin/Cork/Galway/Limerick/Sligo/Letterkenny/Drogheda or any other large town in a publicly owned building and the equipment is less than 200K. That’s a pretty cheap pilot by anyone’s standards.
P.S. in the US this is happening this week: https://www.whitehouse.gov/nation-of-makers. We are behind – fact. And behind more than just the US – there are about 50 fablabs in France. There’s one in Jalalabad, Cairo, Derry, Belfast – another 16 in GB (at least) – 450+ in the world total. I’m in a team hoping to start off 3 in Jordan – one of which to be the first in a refugee camp. This is no-brainer stuff but nobody seems to be listening.
Coding, Microsoft exams like the mta’s, A+ and network+ should all be taught in school all of these are recognised all over the world
Many of the syllabi on those, and stuff like City and Guilds are very out of date. Microsoft still offers training in languages like VB, which are hardly used anymore. Microsoft training is pretty Microsoft specific. Learning off something from the beginning, which is open source and therefore free is arguably better for the education system. If people want to go on and further study to attain Microsoft qualifications, once they have passed Second level, by all means, but Second Level is not the place to implement such learning, at least, not without significant cost.
The mediocrity of our education system runs deeper than lack of coding. While a valid proposal, the fact is that the people who come out of colleges apparently knowing how to code, aren’t sufficiently talented to get the job. I fear that this would simply add more dross to the heap of mediocre programmers than addressing the root problems.
Whoa! “aren’t sufficiently talented”?!!!
What an awful insult – the truth is more like this:
Jobs are available and everyone keeps screaming “go for IT!” – but when graduates come out, they are applying for “graduate level” jobs where employers also ask for 2 or more years of experience!
In the mean time we have jobbridge for people to try to get that experience.
“Whoa! “aren’t sufficiently talented”?!!!
What an awful insult”
It’s not “insulting”, it’s just a fact.
Jobs are available and many of the graduates we’re producing aren’t good enough to do them. That’s the harsh truth. That’s why Paypal, Google and the like hire a substantial proportion of their employees from abroad.
What’s “insulting” is the pernicious government lie about our “world class education system” and the collapse in standards that numerous administrations have happily stood over. But of course, no one wants to address it. We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. And I get it. No one wants to think their degree is worth less, or that they did a dumbed down course, or attended a mediocre institution. We all, like it or not, have a vested interest in defending the mediocre system we came through, because we are trying to sell ourselves to employers on the basis of coming through same.
Unfortunately, in the long run, it benefits no one, and the chickens will come home to roost.
For the record, part of the reason employers ask for experience is they don’t trust the education system. It’s why more and more companies are insisting on their own entrance exams.
have your say