Cultural Representations of Gender among u. s. Computer Science Undergraduates: Statistical and Data Mining Results

Worldwide, there is substantial evidence that cultural contexts may either support or hinder the number of women versus men participating in computing. There is also evidence that certain computing disciplines have more appeal to women than others. Hence research on any computing gender gap should be specific to a culture and a computing discipline. In the United States (US) a popular belief is that Computer Science (CS) has a decidedly ‘masculine culture’. This paper reports on research that investigates this perception, comparing CS undergraduates to undergraduates in non-computing disciplines (NCD). The data were collected in a nationwide purposeful sampling of US citizens attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) with an ethnic compositional focus on African Americans and Caucasians. The paper describes a survey scale developed in the US to characterize a person’s gender role as feminine, masculine, or androgynous. The data were analyzed using statistical and data mining techniques. Surprisingly, CS students were found to be more androgynous than masculine.