Using Email to Diffuse Gender Stereotypes in Elementary School Children

Alice A. Christie, Ph.D.
Arizona State University West
PO Box 37100, MC 3151
Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100

Phone: 602-543-6338
FAX: 602-543-6350
Email: alice.christie@asu.edu
Home Page: http://www.west.asu.edu/achristie/

This paper describes one aspect of a naturalistic study of elementary school children engaged in a telecommunications workshop. It answers the question, "How does gender interface with intensive email use?" Data includes 750 pages of email messages written by the teacher/researcher and the participants during a six month period. A feminist perspective informs the analysis.

During a six-month naturalistic study, I served as teacher-researcher in three telecommunications workshops for elementary school children. Approximately twelve second, third or fourth grade children participated in each workshop. It is important to explicate my personal biases about pedagogy which informed both my teaching and the overall structure of the workshop. I do not view knowledge as content that can be stored in books and taught to students who are passive learners or empty vessels waiting to be filled. Rather, I believe that knowledge is socially constructed and therefore must be personally relevant to the learner if it is to be meaningful at all. Further, learning is a dynamic process in which learners are actively engaged from the ground up. They must be partners in establishing curriculum, deciding which sources to use, how and for what purposes they will employ these sources, and for evaluating their learning in terms of their own goals. In other words, students should explore their own interests, make important decisions about their own learning, and have numerous opportunities to solve authentic problems.

I characterize my classroom as a community of learners where power is shared and where participatory processes help learners develop independence. I strive to make my classroom collaborative, cooperative and interactive (Maher, 1985) and to make it an active classroom where risk-taking is encouraged, where intellectual excitement abounds and where power is viewed as energy, capacity, and potential rather than domination. By focusing particularly (though not exclusively) on girls who historically are either left out or underrepresented in studies of technology, I hope to shed light on how girls view their experiences with technology. Gilligan (1982) recounts how she used "the group left out in the construction of theory to call attention to what is missing in its account" (p. 4). I hope this study will allow readers to abandon their previous understandings of how humanity views technology and adopt a more encompassing view of all people and technology.

A review of several hundred empirical studies on gender and computers conducted between 1984 and the present paints an overall picture of male dominance. Clarke and Chambers (1989) reported that men had superior computing abilities, and Zelman (1986) reported that boys had superior mathematical and spatial abilities which, in turn, predisposed them to superior computing abilities. When surveying 1,500 high school students, Gardner, McEwen, and Curry (1986) found that girls saw themselves as less capable than boys presumably because these girls believed that computers carried a masculine image. Several studies (Felter, 1985; Lockheed, Nielson, & Stone, 1985) found that males had a higher degree of computer literacy than females, that females were less likely to take advanced computer courses (Fisher, 1984), and that females did not feel competent enough to use the computer voluntarily (Sanders, 1990)

Males used computers more than females (Hawkins, 1985; Nelson & Watson, 1991). This tendency begins in elementary school where boys tended to dominate computer use and often crowded girls out (Siann, MacLeod, Glissov, & Durndell, 1990). In addition, three times as many boys as girls participated in summer computer camps, and parents were more likely to purchase computers, computer software and peripherals for boys than for girls (Hess & Miura, 1985). By high school, the gender gap in computer use was even more pronounced. Boys were more likely to own a computer, understand the electronic operations of computers and be part of extracurricular computer classes (Levin & Gordon, 1989). At all levels, boys were more likely to be chosen to assist the teacher with technology than were girls (Sanders, 1990). Follier (1986) observed that girls generally enjoyed computing less than boys because most available software appeals to boys rather than to girls; the software uses gaming formats which are competitive and often violent and which pit two players against each other or one player against the computer. And finally, male teachers used computers more than female teachers at the elementary, secondary, and university levels (Hattie & Fitzgerald, 1987). Reinen and Plomp (1993) found that in schools worldwide, computer use was dominated by men; therefore students lacked female role models in this domain. In addition, those women who did use computers often underestimated their computer knowledge and skills and had less self-confidence regarding computers than their male colleagues.

In Failing At Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls (1994), the Sadkers characterized gender-bias as part of the hidden curriculum of educational institutions and they asked how these hidden lessons short-change girls and women. In regard to science and technology, they reported that:

The majority of these studies come out of a positivist paradigm and view the computer as an object, and often as a unitary object which carries the assumption of "one meaning fits all." The focus of these studies is the computer. However, in most of the studies which come out of a naturalistic research paradigm, the focus is on computing, not the computer. Kramer and Lehman (1990) synthesized the need for more qualitative research in the field of computing when they suggested that "an important starting point is the recognition of computing as an activity that incorporates and reflects social relationships and has social and psychological impacts" (p. 171). Kay (1992) echoed this sentiment when he called for research that goes beyond identifying gender differences in computing to understanding them. He suggested that collecting more qualitative data which focuses on context will begin to accomplish this goal. And Turkle (1988) believes that only through research, which examines the context of the computer culture, will researchers come to understand ways in which "the computer can be a partner in a great diversity of relationships" (p. 57).

The development of a feminist perspective on technology is a very recent endeavor. A review of the empirical literature cited above reveals very few female researchers and even fewer whose work is grounded in feminist theory. Reviewing this body of literature, then, provides a strongly male perspective. Such a perspective does not account for: (a) female ways of knowing (Belenky, Clinchey, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986); (b) a view of the world which focuses on care rather than justice (Gilligan, 1982); or (c) how power relations are constituted in the use of technology (Gore, 1993). Instead, the computer is viewed as a neutral construct and is subject to no critical examination by the researchers investigating the interface between gender and computers. Such inquiry does not account for the multiple ways of knowing and thinking--label by Turkle and Papert (1990) as "epistemological pluralism"--which exists within the computer culture today.

Sherry Turkle (1988) suggested that there is no inherent gender-bias in the computer itself, but that this is not the case with the computer culture. She suggested that the view of computer as male domain would cause women to experience "computer reticence, [a desire] to stay away because the computer becomes a personal and cultural symbol of what a woman is not" (p. 41). "Women," she maintained, "look at computers and see more than machines. They see the culture that has grown around them and ask themselves if they belong" (p. 42). The computer culture is indeed gendered.

In her book, The Neuter Computer (Sanders & Stone, 1986), and in her more recent work Jo Sanders (1990), maintained that most girls felt there was a NO GIRLS ALLOWED sign on the door of the computer lab. The computer lab was a place for (often rather nerd-like) boys and men, and it was not a proper place for girls. Sanders (1990), reported, however, that when teachers and parents made a concerted effort to include girls in computing, they found many interested takers. In fact, she reported, in many schools where such intervention occurred, girls’ use of computers skyrocketed, and was sometimes greater than that of the boys.

Finally, Kathleen Michel (1994) investigated to what extent gender differences were evident in email messaging. Tannen (1994) suggested that females and males have different conversational styles in face-to-face interactions which often lead to miscommunication and misunderstandings. Michel wondered whether this tendency carried over to electronic interactions as well. She used Tannen’s descriptions of "report talk" and "rapport talk" to characterize the conversational styles of boys and girls using KIDCAFE, an electronic youth dialogue for children 10 to 15 years of age. She found that, in general, boys use report talk, that is, boasting, talking about activities, or object-oriented talk; and girls, in general, use rapport talk, that is, talking about friends, family, and attractions to boys. But neither tendency was as strong as in the face-to-face interactions which Tannen described. Michel concluded that the electronic environment may be a safer, less socially-bounded atmosphere than face-to-face settings, and as such, will result in fewer differences in the way boys and girls converse.

During this six-month naturalistic study, I served as teacher-researcher in three telecommunications workshops for elementary school children. Approximately twelve second, third or fourth grade children participated in each workshop. Workshops took place in a Macintosh lab with full Internet connectivity. The average age of the children was nine years, one month. The 30 children who self-selected the workshops spent between 35 and 105 hours interacting with computers and telecommunications outside the regular school setting. Fifty-nine percent of the participants were girls, 41% were boys; there was racial diversity within the group: 69 % White, 17% Hispanic, 7% African-American, and 7% Asian. After I introduced the children to both electronic mail and a variety of searching tools for the Internet, the children were responsible for deciding how to spend their time each day. My goal was to provide an open-ended environment which would help me understand how the differences and similarities in the ways females and males viewed computers, telecommunications and the workshop experience. Such a format allowed the children to use computers and email for their own agendas.

Construct Number Percent Number Percent

Fun technology 13 15 Tool for getting great pictures 2 2

Tool for research 13 15 Human vs. non-human 2 2

Confusing/Frustrating technology 9 11 Control/Computer's in charge 2 2

Tool for building relationships 6 7 Tools which adults teach kids 2 2

Tool for playing games 5 6 Tool for personal use/productivity 1 1

Tool for communicating with others 5 6 Tool which provides independence 1 1

Tool for playing with language 5 6 Good. wholesome hobby/career 1 1

Tool to gain one-upmanship 5 6 New way to view communication 1 1

Place for chit chat (pleasant) 4 5 Place for gossip (negative) 0 0

Tools for insulting others 4 5 Expensive technology 0 0

Tool for discussing romance 4 5 Tool for building quiet leadership 0 0

Girls Girls

Construct Number Percent Number Percent

Tool for building relationships 26 15 Control/Computer's in charge 5 3

Fun technology 22 13 New way to view communication 4 2

Tool for communicating with others 22 13 Tools which adults teach kids 4 2

Tool for research 18 11 Tools for insulting others 3 2

Confusing/Frustrating technology 12 7 Tool for getting great pictures 2 1

Place for chit chat (pleasant) 11 6 Tool for playing games 2 1

Tool for personal use/productivity 9 5 Place for gossip (negative) 2 1

Tool which provides independence 7 4 Expensive technology 2 1

Tool for playing with language 6 4 Tool for building quiet leadership 2 1

Good. wholesome hobby/career 6 4 Tool for discussing romance 1 1

Tool to gain one-upmanship 5 3 Human vs. non-human 0 0

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The elementary school children with whom I worked showed some interesting gender differences in their uses of computers and telecommunications. Gender often affected (a) the meanings the children assigned to the concepts computers and telecommunications, (b) the topics they wrote about or explored, and (c) the social functions for which they used computers or telecommunications during the course of the workshop. This paper focuses solely on the meanings the children assigned to computers; a discussion of topics and social functions appears elsewhere (Christie, 1997 and Christie, 1996). I begin with assertions -- which are analytic generalizations about the data. They account for both regularities and diversities in the data and help me more fully understand the perspectives of the participants in this study. Since both the computer and gender are social constructions, it was not surprising that girls and boys viewed computers differently. What was surprising was the extent of convergence in their assignment of meaning to the computer.

Earlier I explicated my belief that meaning is socially constructed by individuals as they interact with objects and other people. Barrett (1992) maintains that not only do people construct their own meanings for technology, but also that technology facilitates the mediation of meaning. The children in this study could never have constructed these particular meanings for "computer" or "telecommunications" without intimate, personal experiences with computers and telecommunications.

First, it is interesting to note, that girls mentioned computers in contexts which suggested a particular meaning more often than boys. For every ten instances by girls, there were only seven by boys. The four most frequent meanings attached to computers by boys were fun technology (15%), tool for finding information (15%), confusing/frustrating technology (11%), and tool for building relationships (7%). Approximately half of those boys who mentioned computers characterized computers as possessing these dimensions. The four most frequent meanings attached to computers by girls were tool for building relationships (15%), fun technology (13%), tool for communicating with others (13%), and tool for research (11%). Slightly more than half of those girls who mentioned the computer characterized computers as possessing these dimensions. While both boys and girls viewed computers as a fun technology, girls felt an even more fitting characterization was that of relationship builder. When I considered tool for building relationships, tool for communication, and a place for chit chat together, there was a marked difference between boys and girls; there were twice as many instances of girls than boys who viewed the computer as a medium for connecting-with-others. Both girls and boys found computers frustrating, but both groups considered computers more fun than frustrating. Interestingly, boys mentioned computers as frustrating more often than did girls (11% vs. 7%).

There were nine times as many instances of girls than boys who mentioned the computer as a tool for personal productivity. I have listed this statement in both assertions. Considering the computer as a tool for personal productivity simultaneously helped the girls maintain and defy gender stereotypes. On one hand, viewing the computer in this way helped girls maintain the stereotype of productive and helpful teachers’ pets who turn in neat, on-time, well-organized work. On the other hand, it helped girls defy the girls-don’t-use-computers stereotype.

There were four times as many instances of boys than girls who saw the computer as a tool for discussing romantic connections. Several boys’ messages were dominated with questions about whether their penpal had a girlfriend. Dave asked Andy if he had a girl friend and Andy responded that he used to have a girl friend, but doesn’t now. In every message which Al sent to Tony, he inquired if Tony had a girl friend; Tony ignored the questions and never responded. Girl friend-boy friend talk was found in 17% of the boys’ messages and in only 3% of the girls’ messages. The few interchanges between girls which indicated they viewed the computer as a tool for discussing romantic connections are shown below:

Other interesting differences are summarized below:

Most children were quite articulate when I asked, "What is a computer?" Boys stressed the information-generating aspect of computers: