Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This text examines in detail the issue of the underrepresentation of women, African Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics in the computing disciplines in the U.S. The work reviews the underlying causes, as well as the efforts of various nonprofit organizations to correct the situation, in order to both improve social equity and address the shortage of skilled workers in this area. Topics and features: presents a digest and historical overview of the relevant literature from a range of disciplines, including leading historical and social science sources; discusses the social and political factors that have affected the demographics of the workforce from the end of WWII to the present day; provides historical case studies on organizations that have sought to broaden participation in computing and the STEM disciplines; reviews the different approaches that have been applied to address underrepresentation, at the individual, system-wide, and pathway-focused level; profiles the colleges and universities that have been successful in opening up computer science or engineering to female students; describes the impact of individual change-agents as well as whole organizations.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Aspray (Univ. of Colorado Boulder), a well-known historian of the computer, aims to encourage primary source research into the participation and contributions of women, African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians. The author notes that quality books and articles exist, such as Janet Abbate's Recoding Gender (CH, Jun'13, 50-5630) and David Alan Grier's When Computers Were Human (CH, Dec'05, 43-2249), but he sees ample room for growth, particularly in telling the stories of underrepresented minorities. Aspray also wants historians to incorporate more social science literature into their analyses. Thus, he reviews scholarly sources for the history of STEM education with respect to the four groups, including Amy Sue Bix's Girls Coming to Tech! (CH, Nov'14, 52-1451) and Clarence G. Williams's Technology and the Dream (CH, Sep'01, 39-0286). In the second half of the book, he lists and describes organizations that have reached out to students and adults to draw them toward STEM and computing careers. Aspray emphasizes the demographics of professions and projects designed to recruit and retain participants, rather than the technical accomplishments of people from the four groups. This emphasis does, though, bring attention to the large number of associations currently engaged in these efforts. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Amy K. Ackerberg-Hastings, independent scholar