BY ROBERT GREENE
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Girls are closing the gap with boys in math and science achievement but lag in computer skills, a women's advocacy group said Tuesday. The American Association of University Women also said girls still choose jobs and careers based on stereotypes that persist. Guidance counselors are overworked to the point that they cannot steer girls into nontraditional fields, the group said.
The conclusions were among many in a 106-page synthesis of data, research reports and journal and newspaper articles. The book comes six years after the group's influential report on gender equity in public schools, "How Schools Shortchange Girls." The new publication, Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children, found that girls today are enrolling in more math and science courses while also taking more Advanced Placement courses in English, biology and foreign languages. In fact, a higher percentage of girls than boys studied geometry, biology and chemistry, according to 1994 data from the Education Department.
Still, there were some gaps. The data showed that 27 percent of boys had taken physics, compared with 22 percent of girls. Twenty-three percent of boys had taken all three core courses -- biology, chemistry and physics -- compared with 20 percent of girls.
On top of that, 25 percent of girls were taking or had taken computer science courses, compared with 30 percent of boys. And girls were far more likely to study the clerical applications such as data entry and word processing.
"Girls have narrowed some significant gender gaps, but technology is now the new "boys club' in our nation's public schools," said Janice Weinman, executive director of the group. "While boys program and problem-solve with computers, girls use computers for word processing."
The problem has caught the attention of companies like Xerox, which is supporting a newly founded independent Institute for Women and Technology in Palo Alto, Calif.
"I think that the stereotypes of the techie have so pervaded the culture that girls don't feel that they belong," said Anita Borg, the institute's founder and president. "I also feel that games and software have been targeted at boys."
The games and software encourage boys to interact with technology more, so boys seem more confident and girls feel they're on less than even ground when it comes to choosing coursework and a major, she said.
