Tackling technology’s image problem among young girls

It has been noted for some time now that the field of technology as an area of work, has been, and continues to be gender imbalanced and gender stratified This persistent trend has led to a growing body of theorisation and to the (re‐) evaluations of the inter relationship between gender and technology. It is beyond the scope of this article to review the rich theoretical work on gender and technol ogy, and instead the “essentialist” and “constructivist” approaches are briefly discussed here, since they offer a useful frame work within which to look at the case study policy of this article. This policy, as will be shown in the following sections, adopts an “essentialist” stance by seeing women’s under‐representation as resulting from gendered technologies and the obduracy of masculine values associated with technology, and by focusing on girls’ interests as distinct from those of boys. It adopts at the same time a “constructivist” approach through the strategy’s ability to reshape technology through girls’/women’s wider appropriation and use of technology, whereby technology is seen as socially constructed . Before exploring this dualism in more detail, it is helpful to develop a little the theoretical foundations of essentialism and constructivism.