- Policy Issues
- Design Issues
Design Issues
- Background
- Strategic Issues
Literacy gender gaps
Mark Kim, a researcher at the Center for Gender Equity, has just completed his analysis of two longitudinal studies on the gender gaps in technology education and literacy, with some ironic results.While girls continued to excel in reading and writing programs, the analysis substantiated the perpetual downward trend in girls' performance in technology programs.
Conversely, boys were showing promising results in computer science scores, but a steadily downward trend in reading and writing skills. National statistics reveal that boys start falling behind girls in reading and writing starting at age nine. These negative trends are compounded for African-American and Latino boys.
Creating a market niche
Mark saw an opportunity to address both the gaps in technology performance for girls, and reading and writing performance for boys. He contacted a fellow Harvard alumnus, Sangeeta Patel, now a successful multi-media designer at Headgames.com, a high-tech computer software company, to design an educational product that bridges the technology and literacy divide.
Headgames.com
Based on her success designing for both the girls' and boys' market, Mark has approached Sangeeta to create an educational technology product to improve reading and writing skills. The product will be used in schools as an educational technology tool for middle-school children.
