Invisible Women in IT: Examining Gender Representation in K-12 ICT Teaching Materials

The underrepresentation of women in IT has been a long-standing issue. Research has shown that women’s first experience with computing education is vital in shaping their perception of the field and their perception of who “belongs” to it. In this Danish case study, we examine gender representation in the subject Informatics, which is the first mandatory, formal introduction to computing education for many students in Denmark. Across 25% of all Danish HHX high schools, we assess the teaching materials on parameters of gender representation in pronouns, names, images, audio/video material, and potential role models. Our results suggest an overall underrepresentation of women in textual and audio/video material, but not in images. We also find an overall absence of female role models, and a tendency for the materials to feature younger female role models than their male counterparts. We conclude with concrete recommendations for authors and publishers of teaching materials for ICT on the high school level.