GSE/SGER: Developing An Extension Service Proposal to Recruit Middle School Girls to Information Technology Careers

这个探索性项目将建立基础设施，为弗吉尼亚州的农村、阿巴拉契亚地区和周边各州提供扩展服务。该项目力求引起兴趣的显著和持续增长，从而使通常得不到充分服务的中学女生选择信息技术职业。规划年度将用于发展学校、社区和行业伙伴关系以及与利益相关者的关系；制定涵盖整个项目的严格评估计划；巩固一个统一的变革计划，以增加不同的、服务不足的地区中学女生对IT职业的兴趣和选择。智力优势——该项目建立在先前对“技术中的女性”（WIT）研究小组的资助基础上，该小组旨在调查女性从事IT职业的障碍，开发和传播DVD和《辅导员指南》，以支持家长、教师、辅导员和顾问作为女孩职业决策的合作伙伴，以及多篇同行评议的期刊文章、一本书、国际研究会议和国家报告。它将采用跨学科团队的方法，为我们对农村、阿巴拉契亚文化的理解提供见解，并开发一种可以在全国复制的变革模式，利用学校辅导员接触中学女生，增加她们对It职业的兴趣和选择。更广泛的影响——该项目的跨学科方法将建立最佳实践的基础设施和知识库，以提高阿巴拉契亚农村中学女生对IT职业的兴趣和选择。该模式的创新之处在于，它将中学辅导员作为一个实践社区，并将这个社区与广泛的最佳实践策略和研究联系起来，并通过从实施经验到进一步为实践提供信息的反馈循环。弗吉尼亚和邻近的阿巴拉契亚州是一个很好的选择，因为它增加了IT公司，并且有机会开发一个农村模式，从早期发展的中学年龄开始有效地影响全国IT劳动力。

This exploratory project will create the infrastructure for establishing an extension service for the rural, Appalachian regions of Virginia and surrounding states. The project seeks to engender a significant and sustained increase in interest which would lead to the choice of an information technology (IT) career among typically underserved middle school girls. The planning year will be spent in developing school, community, and industry partnerships and relationships with stakeholders; developing a rigorous evaluation plan that encompasses the entire project; and solidifying a unified program of change to increase the interest and choice of an IT career among a diverse, underserved regional population of middle school girls.INTELLECTUAL MERIT--This project builds on previous grants to the Women In Technology (WIT) research team to investigate barriers to females' pursuit of IT careers, the development and dissemination of a DVD and Facilitator's Guide to support parents, teachers, counselors and advisors as partners to girls in career decision-making, and multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, a book, and international research conference and national presentations. It will use an interdisciplinary team approach to provide insights into our understanding of rural, Appalachian cultures and the development of a model of change that can be replicated nationally using school counselors to reach middle school girls to increase the interest and choice of an IT career.BROADER IMPACT--The interdisciplinary approach of this project will develop an infrastructure and knowledge base of best practices to increase rural Appalachia middle school girls' interest and choice of an IT career. The model is innovative in focusing on middle school counselors as a community of practice and connecting this community to a broad range of best practice strategies and research with a feedback loop from implementation experiences to further inform practice. Virginia and the contiguous Appalachian region of states is a good choice for this effort given its increase in IT companies and opportunity for developing a rural model for effectively impacting the national IT workforce from an early developmental middle school age.