The Wiley Handbook of Gender Equity in Higher Education

15Global Participation in Undergraduate Computing: A Review and Agenda for Research

Kathleen J. Lehman, Kaitlin N.S. Newhouse, and Linda J. Sax

As illustrated by several other chapters in this volume, women's participation in STEM fields is a primary concern among higher education scholars. Generally, women are underrepresented in STEM across the globe, but their participation varies widely, both by discipline and by country (Huyer 2015). Computing serves as a prime example of this variation. In many industrialized nations, women are a minority in undergraduate computer science (CS) (Cohoon 2003; Frehill and Cohoon 2015), yet in countries like India and Malaysia, women and men earn computing degrees at similar rates. Hence, using an international lens to explore gender gaps in computing may provide important context for understanding women's participation in computing and even in STEM fields writ large.

It is also imperative to understand women's participation in computing given the growing importance of this field in global economies and societies. In the United States, many jobs in the computing and information technology sector go unfilled, despite paying high salaries (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015). Women earn approximately 57% of American total bachelor's degrees (National Center for Education Statistics 2016), yet they earn only 19% of CS degrees (National Center for Education Statistics 2016). Hence, attracting and retaining more women to computing is key to increasing ...