Increasing high school girls' exposure to computing activities with e-textiles: challenges and lessons learned

The number of female students in computer science degrees has been rapidly declining in Denmark in the past 40 years, as in many other European and North-American countries. The main reasons behind this phenomenon are widespread gender stereotypes about who is best suited to pursue a career in CS; stereotypes about computing as a ‘male’ domain; widespread lack of pre-college CS education and perceptions of computing as not socially relevant. STEAM activities have often been used to bridge the gender gap and to broaden the appeal of computing among children and youth. This contribution examines a STEAM pilot workshop organized by the IT University of Copenhagen which targeted high school girls. The workshop aimed to introduce the girls to coding and computing through hands-on e-textiles activities realized with the Protosnap Lilypad Development board. This contribution discusses the advantages and challenges of using e-textiles activities as introduction to coding and computing.