Nr BT30 HOW TO INCLUDE FEMALE STUDENTS IN TECHNICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDY PROGRAMS

Introduction: The unbalanced number of female and male students in computer science, and in general, in technology and engineering has been extensible studied. There are numerous sociocultural, neurological and psychological studies that analyse the situation of female students at technical computer science programs, focusing on the differences that would make women less or more likely to excel in these areas (e.g. Mayer-Smith et al., 2000; Rubio et al., 2014). In a previous study carried out by the authors (Riveiro, Bergström, & Carlén, 2012) investigating if a male-dominant environment affects the learning experience of the female students from a particular program within computer science (Network and System Administration , NSA) resulted in various questions that needed further investigation. This study tackles one of them, why several female students interested in the program that submitted an application did not finally register? This question frames our work that intends to strategically consider a norm-critical pedagogy that fosters a more heterogeneous group of students.