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IST Researchers Receive NSF Award to Study How Race, Ethnicity Affect Gender Stereotypes
10/03/2007
by Margaret Hopkins
by Margaret Hopkins
Eileen Trauth, professor of information sciences and technology
The three-year project which will involve surveys and focus groups of male and female undergraduate students at eight institutions, including Penn State, aims to identify reasons why women are underrepresented in IT—historically, a male-dominated field.
“We want to understand the connections among class, race, gender and IT work, so the doors to the knowledge economy can be opened for all people,” said Eileen Trauth, professor of information sciences and technology and lead researcher. “Our goal is to develop insights that will inform interventions for specific populations.”
The study’s other researchers are Lynette Kvasny, Penn State assistant professor in IST; K.D. Joshi, associate professor at Washington State University; and Jan Mahar, IST senior instructor.
Lynette Kvasny, assistant professor Another area of the project examines the effects of race, ethnicity and social class on individuals’ perceptions of and responses to gender stereotyping. Research has shown that women’s academic preparation for and self-confidence about learning science or technology varies, Kvasny said.
African-American women, for instance, tend to be very self-confident although they sometimes lack the requisite academic preparation to be successful. As a result, they don’t always persist in technology fields.
Understanding that will enable better interventions—a math boot camp to help with preparation or a different program to boost confidence if that is the stumbling block, Kvasny said.
Jan Mahar, IST senior instructor “In order to be competitive in today’s knowledge society, we need the best brains we can get,” Trauth added. “We can’t afford to limit ourselves to people of a certain gender, a certain ethnicity or a certain social class.”
