Preparing women for dead-end jobs? Vocational education and training (VET) for information and communication technology (ICT) jobs

This paper discusses the role that vocational education and training (VET) in ICT subject areas plays in contributing to the gender and social class structuring of ICT occupations, focusing in particular on education and employment data from the UK. The paper also makes reference to similar data about ICT VET in Germany and Japan to argue that the new areas of ‘soft’ ICT skills – in education and in occupations - have become feminised, and channel women into low skilled and low paid work. Unlike university level ICT education, which has opened opportunities for women and students coming from families with no experience of higher education, sub-degree level ICT VET seems to be continuing to reproduce gender and socio- economic class within and through ICT occupations. I argue that those concerned with gender equity research and interventions in ICT need to work with an analysis that disaggregates what are now appearing to be quite different skills sets, and different career opportunities often misleadingly conflated under the umbrella term ‘ICT’. I also argue for better analytical models for the gendering of ICT than those offered by the ‘leaky pipeline’ or ‘critical mass’ models, and for new analyses that would incorporate both a structural analysis and new ways of looking at women’s choices, such as Hakim’s ‘orientation to work’

ICT as a tool for enhancing women’s education opportunities: and new educational and professional opportunities for women in new technologies

The paper was prepared at the request of the UN Division for the Advancement of Women. It is a discussion paper for the Expert Group meeting on ICT and their impact and use as a tool for the advancement and empowerment of women in Seoul Korea 9-15th Nov 2002. The paper attempts separate the issues of ICT education as training for work in ICT professions and occupations, and ICT use for general education at all levels. It reviews recommendations made by other bodies and advises the EGM that it needs to adopt a more systemic understanding of the operations of gender and ICTs for any new, more effective recommendation

Vocational education and training (VET) for ICT employment: preparing women for work

This paper attempts to articulate the problematic issues that contribute to women’s participation or lack of it in ICT technical and vocational education and training (VET ). This is the training and education that prepares women for employment in IT jobs, or helps re-skill or up-skill them once they are employed. The paper has three sections. The maps out what is encompassed by the category (technical and) vocational education and training (VET), to give some idea of the context and institutions in which the specific activity of ICT VET takes place, focusing on non-university institutions. The second section reviews data about women’s participation in ICT VET from four countries and one large commercial training provider in order to explore whether different educational systems and contexts produce differences in women’s participation in ICT VET. The third and final section of the paper explores the main factors that contribute to differences in women’s participation. It also raises questions about whether those active in initiatives for women in ICT training are using the best categories to understand the nature of women’s engagement in ICTs, or whether it would be more useful for gender equity to reconceptualise the nature of ICT work and skills

The inverse solution of the atomic mixing equations by an operator-splitting method

The quantification problem of recovering the original material distribution from secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) data is considered in this paper. It is an inverse problem, is ill-posed and hence it requires a special technique for its solution. The quantification problem is essentially an inverse diffusion or (classically) a backward heat conduction problem. In this paper an operator-splitting method (that is proposed in a previous paper by the first author for the solution of inverse diffusion problems) is developed for the solution of the problem of recovering the original structure from the SIMS data. A detailed development of the quantification method is given and it is applied to typical data to demonstrate its effectiveness

Combining feminist pedagogy and transactional distance to create gender-sensitive technology-enhanced learning

In this paper, we argue for a new synthesis of two pedagogic theories: feminist pedagogy and transactional distance, which explain why and how distance education has been such a positive system for women in a national distance learning university. We illustrate this with examples of positive action initiatives for women. The concept of transactional distance allows us to explore distance as a form of psychological and communication space, not simply of geographical distance. Feminist pedagogy, on the other hand, has recognised the importance of gender in structuring disciplines as well as teaching strategies. Both theories implicitly position the face-to-face classroom as the ideal learning environment, with the implication that distance learning has to produce a deficient environment. We argue that the evidence for women does not support this and present examples of feminist distance learning provision that has offered successful technology-enhanced learning and educational opportunities

Modelling and Developing an Intelligent Road Lighting System Using Power-Line Communication

The development of a suitable system which will control street lighting ballasts depending on traffic flow, communicate data between each street light along the Power-Line and sense passing traffic. This paper offers the methodology of the system, environmental benefits, commercial benefits and safety benefits of such a unique system. It also shows topics that have been researched to date and potential future development paths this research could take

Women and Men in Science, Engineering and Technology: The UK Statistics Guide 2010

The UK Statistics Guide on Women in Science, Engineering, Technology and the Built Environment (SET) provides detailed data analysis using a conceptual framework for gender segregation in SET. The Guide aims to aid future benchmarking and monitoring of progress against a number of indicators from the areas of secondary and higher education, vocational training, employment and gender pay, leadership and public engagement. It illustrates the existence, even in 2009, of the gender and SET ‘leaky pipeline’ by showing where, in SET education and employment, the biggest attrition of women occurs, and how the participation of women has changed in recent years. It presents a complex picture, demonstrating not only the well known under-representation of women in SET, but also a multilayered interplay between gender and other factors such as ethnicity and disability, types of occupations and industries, and educational and employment career stages. This Guide is a reference document and we hope it will enable practitioners, policy makers, employers, researchers and activists in gender and equality to review the current situation, and identify where the strengths, gaps and challenges lie