Gender and Information Technology: Moving Beyond Access to Co-Create Global Partnership - Hardcover

Kirk, Mary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1599047861 ISBN 13: 9781599047867

Publisher: Information Science Reference, 2008

Synopsis

The exponential growth of technology and concurrent information revolution is creating a tremendous cultural shift on a global scale. However, the direction of that shift is being determined by those privileged few who participate. Women and people of color remain underrepresented as developers, users and beneficiaries of technology.

Using gender as a starting point, Gender and Information Technology: Moving Beyond Access to Co-Create Global Partnership offers an interdisciplinary, social systems perspective on how shifting from a dominator social system towards a partnership system--as reflected in four primary social institutions (communication, media, education, and business)--might help us move beyond the simplistic notion of access to information technology towards partnership in co-creating a real digital revolution worldwide. This significant, compelling title defines core roots of the problem while proposing solutions in which we can all participate.

About this title

About the Author

Mary Kirk is an associate professor in the individualized, interdisciplinary & lifelong learning department at Metropolitan State University where she also teaches in the women's studies program. She also taught at the University of Washington, Bothell for four years in the computing and software systems program. Kirk has convened panels on women in science and technology at conferences such as the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, National Women's Studies Association and Conference on Computing in Small Colleges. She has published articles on women in science and technology in journals such as the Journal of Computing in Small Colleges and the NWSA Journal and a chapter in Goran Trajkovski's (2006) Diversity in information technology education: Issues and controversies.

Review

"Kirk organizes and assembles research and ideas that germinated as she completed her Ph.D in women's studies and women in computing." --Book News Inc. (February 2009)

"The book is definitely the foremost historical chronicle of women in science and mathematics (and now information technology). If I were to explore the topic further, this text and its hundreds of references and citations would certainly be at my side during the research phase. In addition, the citations provide a comprehensive bibliography of resources on the subject of women, computing, STEM, and technology. With respect to this particular portion of the evaluation, I have no recommendations to improve this area; the breadth of the lit review is truly laudatory. . . Well done. You have constructed a very successful examination of women in computing that may become the cornerstone for future examinations in the discipline. Your text will serve as a keystone for future study. Your citations will become the bibliography for investigators who seek answers regarding females and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics." --Dr. Lawrence A. Tomei, Robert Morris University, USA

"Mary Kirk has written a passionate argument for change in technology and how we approach the haves and have-nots. Her book is meticulously researched, persuasively argued, and absolutely riveting. She has produced a text that has the potential to change how we think about ourselves and our relationship to technology. She guides us through complex issues with care and understanding. And, at the end, leaves us in a better place to understand how we can be the change that is absolutely and critically needed." --Dr. Helen Correll, Metropolitan State University, USA

Written with verve, compassion, and passion, Gender and Information Technology offers finely crafted tools for narrowing the digital divide that perpetuates inequality and injustice worldwide, marginalizing women and other socially disempowered groups. [Kirk] offers us a treasure trove of fascinating information that alternately enlightens, enrages, and empowers us to take an active role in creating a more just and caring future. --Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and The Blade: Our History

Everyone should read Mary Kirk's background on feminism, stereotypes, the digital divide, and the dominator social institutions. She points out the fundamental, and not always obvious, ways in which women are influenced and often undermined in society and particularly in the computing field. She clearly and elegantly describes the issues and aids the reader in better understanding of what is at stake. --Dr. Carol Zander, University of Washington, USA

About this edition

• Publisher: Information Science Reference
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1599047861
• ISBN 13: 9781599047867
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 350