Technical boys and creative girls: the career aspirations of digitally skilled youths

Abstract

Digital technology is increasingly central to our lives, particularly among young people. However, there remains a concern from government and businesses of a digital skills gap because many youths, especially girls, tend to be consumers rather than creators of technology. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with digitally skilled teenagers (aged 13–19), this article investigates their digital career aspirations and examines how identities and discourses of gender can interact with the type of digital careers that are of interest to these youths. While it was found that digitally skilled young people still articulate traditional gendered discourses of digital competence, especially around technical abilities, the growing importance of creativity as a career pathway into digital technology is highlighted. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the new computing curriculum in England, which prioritises technical computing skills, and the discontinuation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), which facilitates a broader usage of software and digital productivity.

Keywords:

• Aspiration
• discourse
• gender
• identity
• digital technology

Notes

1. General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification generally taken by students aged 14–16 in England.

2. A-level is an academic qualification typically taken by students aged 16–18 in England.

3. Not all students were offered computing at GCSE or A-level in their respective schools. We noted that 17 students (11 boys, 6 girls) have studied/are studying computing. The other 15 students (7 boys, 8 girls) did/are doing ICT.

4. These careers were mentioned 55 times by our 32 students, with computer animation (n = 15), programming (n = 7), art and design (n = 6), game design (n = 6), engineering (n = 4), film production (n = 4) and web design (n = 4) the most popular.

5. The Department for Education stated ‘the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is a school performance measure [on] how many pupils get a grade C or above in the core academic subjects [English, mathematics, history/geography, the sciences and a language] at key stage 4’.