Female Under-Representation in Computing Education and Industry - A Survey of Issues and Interventions <s> 2) Perception of the Computer Scientist: <s> The proportions of Computer Science (CS) graduates who are women has been declining in the last fifteen years. At a time when the demand for computer programmers and systems analysts has been increasing, why are women becoming a smaller proportion of those enrolling in CS programs? This article presents a categorization by educational stages of the research into this topic, and an evaluation of the generalizability of findings to broader contexts. The categorization shows that the most extensive research on women in computing is done at the post-secondary stage, and uses students as non-randomly selected subjects. These studies are non-comprehensive, but where similar results are found in a number of studies, the findings are supported. The emphasis in research focuses on structural factors at the elementary stage, but by the post-secondary stage the emphasis is more likely to be on social psychological factors. <s> BIB001 </s> Female Under-Representation in Computing Education and Industry - A Survey of Issues and Interventions <s> 2) Perception of the Computer Scientist: <s> Gender differences in the pursuit of technology careers are a current issue of concern. We report on two studies that use surveys, drawings and interviews to examine sixth- and eighth-grade students' perceptions of knowledgeable computer users and their self-perception as a computer-type person. In Study 1, participants were asked to generate representations of computer users in pictures or words. The results indicate that the majority of representations were of male users and they frequently wore glasses. Students of both genders were more likely to draw males. Eighth-grade students' representations included more stereotypical features than those of sixth-grade students. In Study 2, students were asked whether they believed that there was such a thing as a computer-type person and whether they perceived themselves to be one. Eighty per cent of students rejected this characterization. They differed from students who accepted it in their levels of past experience, their confidence, and the probability that they shared their knowledge with others. The results of both studies suggest that while there is a male image of computer science in general, it is not overly negative and students' self-perception is not governed by their own gender as much as by other variables. <s> BIB002
Makoff  indicates that society has a profound impact on young girls' image of themselves in relation to computer science. Makoff argued that most of the images of computer scientist are negative and imply that computing is for -Nerds‖ or men only. A similar study of eighth grade pupils' (13-14 years old) expectations of what a knowledgeable computer user would look like by BIB002 illustrated that the majority expect a male user with glasses. However, the picture created by the sixth grade pupils (11-12 years old) presented less stereotypic characteristics and a reasonable number of female representations. This emphasises the increasing impact of socially engineered gender differences with age. This genderspecific view of computer science begins to develop from early stages of secondary education and becomes entrenched towards the end of secondary education BIB001 .