By 6, kids think boys are better than girls at computer science. These programs aim to change that

Jessica Wong · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 05, 2025 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: March 5

During luncheon recess astatine Arnott Charlton Public School successful Brampton, Ont., girls tinker with coding small, colourful LED lights-and-circuits kits oregon constitute euphony connected laptop computers. A laughing trio of 4th graders fine-tunes a tiny wheeled conveyance with an extendable limb arsenic they "rescue" a duck. 

They're engaged and having amusive — precisely the constituent for teacher-librarian Kristofor Schuermann, who founded Megabrights, a coding and exertion nine for girls astatine schools wrong the Peel District School Board westbound of Toronto. 

The request for specified a nine archetypal deed Schuermann erstwhile his ain girl was young: funny but besides anxious astir diving into tech. 

Offerings "weren't needfully targeted toward her oregon truly connected to her passions, and adjacent erstwhile we did negociate to find a program, she was often the lone girl," helium recalled. 

At property six, kids are typically gathering up their speechmaking skills and starting to observe interests, but immoderate besides already clasp the stereotypical content that boys are amended than girls astatine machine subject and engineering, according to a caller survey from the American Institutes for Research. Initiatives some wrong and extracurricular schools enactment to antagonistic sex biases, but educators accidental earlier efforts are needed to marque STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) a abstraction wherever girls tin thrive.

Stereotypes interaction interest

David Miller and colleagues astatine the American Institutes for Research conducted a meta-analysis into 5 decades of studies examining children's beliefs and stereotypes astir STEM, including responses from 145,000 kids successful 33 countries, that was published successful the world diary Psychological Bulletin. 

They recovered that sex stereotypes are not the aforesaid for each STEM subjects: More kids judge boys are amended than girls successful computers and engineering by property six, but the results were much evenly divided for math. 

That was a amazingly nuanced finding, Miller said from Chicago. 

He's concerned, however, that antheral bias could summation arsenic kids age, causing girls to prematurely crook distant from subjects they mightiness bask oregon excel at. 

WATCH | Exploring kids' aboriginal stereotypes astir STEM:

That's what Larissa Vingilis-Jaremko has encountered with the Canadian Association for Girls successful Science, a long-running STEM club she founded successful 1992.

Stereotypes "are really a stronger predictor of involvement successful STEM fields than a child's existent abilities successful STEM," she said. "Stereotypes tin interaction interests and aboriginal vocation directions."

In immoderate countries, ongoing fiscal investments and argumentation alteration wrong STEM fields and acquisition implicit the years person improved the sex balance. In Canada, determination hasn't been a deficiency of enactment and investment, yet it's inconsistent, she noted.

Vingilis-Jaremko feels it hurts some women and the state erstwhile less girls prosecute STEM, particularly erstwhile these fields — with highly paid jobs successful fast-growing sectors — are abbreviated of labour.

As women correspond less than 30 per cent of the Canadians moving successful STEM, "it's truly important to marque definite that these systemic barriers ... are broken."

Sparking excitement astatine a younger age

Boosting diverseness successful STEM introduces antithetic perspectives, which contributes to creativity and problem-solving, says University of Waterloo machine subject prof Sandy Graham. 

With "creative pursuits, the much divers your basal for those creations, the amended the last merchandise volition be."

Graham entered machine subject successful the precocious 1980s — opening her studies conscionable aft the precocious play erstwhile women were astir 40 per cent of computing grads successful the U.S. and Canada — but she's since seen overmuch little enrolment.

Women correspond astir 40 per cent of enrolment successful postsecondary STEM programs, according to Statistics Canada, but successful mathematics and machine subject the proportionality is lower, hovering astir 28 per cent. (Engineering enrolment is adjacent lower.)

Graham sees fewer teen girls during her visits to precocious schoolhouse grades 11 and 12 compsci classes these days, which underlined a request to spark involvement and excitement astir the tract successful younger students.

So, she and colleagues astatine Waterloo present signifier a program for Grade 8 students called CS Escape. The virtual store introduces coding fundamentals to participants, who past trade a integer flight room.

 "They're moving successful a graphical, three-dimensional environment, creating programs that are precise interactive and visually breathtaking and shareable," Graham said.

Toronto teen Keira Pincus was thrilled with however accessible, interactive, challenging and supportive she recovered the workshop, since the video-game instrumentality and budding creator felt discouraged with past attempts to larn coding connected her own. 

"They addressed truthful galore things successful these one-hour sessions. They showed america the format. They showed america the why," she explained. When learning however to code, "I deliberation learning the why is the champion way."

Encouragement to spouse up — isolation is different machine subject stereotype Graham seeks to dispel — was besides appreciated by some Pincus and Annabel Spencer, her person and classmate.

"I truly enjoyed troubleshooting with her," said Spencer, whose ain involvement was piqued by their dad's enactment successful the field. 

Problem-solving unneurotic "made it a batch easier due to the fact that you had 2 views of the coding," they said, adding that it paid disconnected since the brace won a metallic medal successful the last challenge.

Safe spaces, divers relation models needed

Establishing abstraction for girls to observe connections betwixt their interests and STEM — distant from prevalent, "aggressive" tech and computing stereotypes, notes Peel teacher-librarian Schuermann — is 1 important mode to marque change. At Megabrights, girls person created projects straight inspired by their interests oregon purpose to assistance their communities.

"They're processing Android apps oregon they're processing empathy toys," helium noted. "Fashion plan ... applicable to aboriginal conditions, [like] 'Does the garment chill down erstwhile it's hot? Does it airy up astatine nighttime for my safety?'"

American researcher Miller thinks cosmopolitan entree to compsci and engineering learning aboriginal connected successful simple schools is different cardinal step. "Too often it is conscionable near up to extracurricular organizations oregon museums that play a precise captious role, but [not everyone can] instrumentality vantage of those opportunities," helium noted.

Making STEM learning fun, hands-on and ensuring kids person divers relation models besides counteracts stereotypes, says CAGIS laminitis Vingilis-Jaremko, who suggests adults inquire themselves: "If my kid oregon my students are getting exposed to STEM, who are they seeing wrong those fields?"

After doing CS Escape with the Waterloo team, Toronto teen Spencer is anxious to larn much astir machine subject and imagines combining that with a vocation successful medicine 1 day.

Without much occurrence successful engaging girls successful STEM, they said, "[we'll miss retired on] women who tin marque immense breakthroughs ... that conscionable don't get the accidental to due to the fact that they ne'er learned it."