The Next Wave of Gender Projects in IT Curriculum and Teaching at

This paper investigates the `new' crisis in the low numbers of women choosing to study Information and Communication Technology (ICT) courses at universities in Australia and indeed around the western industrialised world. In Australian universities, the spectre of all male ICT classes is becoming more commonplace, particularly in the more technically focused courses. We are hypothesing that this is no `new' crisis at all but simply a further consolidation of a pattern that has been evident for 20 years. The range of `gender' interventions at universities in the 1990's was primarily directed at the `numbers problem' and was largely focused on women rather than reviewing and reforming curriculum, teaching and assessment practices as well. Past interventions have failed to impact significantly on the sex stereotype that has emerged in ICT education in most universities. Projects are now being developed that redirect intervention efforts into curriculum and teaching strategies inside ICT faculties. This paper reports on such a `gender project' in Australia