Last week the Guardian published their university league tables. These tables are really useful for prospective students who want to see where a university may rank in the league tables. I have no doubt as to the quality of these courses so I thought it would be interesting to see the gender breakdown for the students taking part in these courses, using data from Unistats. It is clear from the graph below that the highest rated institutions may not have the best numbers of female applicants.
The University of Liverpool, rated 9th, has 21% female students, while Bristol and York rate higher in the league tables but at the bottom when it comes to gender.
| League Table Number | University | Male | Female | Gender for Ranking 1 = highest. |
| 1 | University of Cambridge | 86 | 14 | 3 |
| 2 | St Andrews | 87 | 13 | 4 = |
| 3 | University of Southampton | 85 | 15 | 2 |
| 4 | Imperial College | 88 | 12 | 5 |
| 5 | University of Bristol | 92 | 8 | 7 = |
| 6 | University of York | 92 | 8 | 7 = |
| 7 | University of Birmingham | 87 | 13 | 4 = |
| 8 | University of Glasgow | 87 | 13 | 4 = |
| 9 | University of Liverpool | 79 | 21 | 1 (Highest!) |
| 10 | Shefield University | 89 | 11 | 6 |
What can universities do?
It is obvious that their courses are great, but it’s also apparent
that they do not seem to be attracting a diverse range of genders.
Here are some ways that universities can attract more female students:
1. Target your outreach to Maths A-level students: there are more
girls there to choose from.
2. Be encouraging in the interview and prospectuses by saying that
programming is NOT a pre-requisite to studying computer science.
3. Provide lots of information about computer science societies and
women’s groups you may have.
4. Have a good prospectus and an easy-to-navigate website.
For a more detailed discussion, take a look at my publications or email reenapau@gmail.com for a chat.
In the next few days keep an eye out as I will be doing a comparison with all the universities in the league tables. keep your eyes peeled for where your university ranks!
Addition (added 18th July) Raw data for the universities in the top ten of league tables can be found by clicking here.
Sources:
1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2012/may/22/university-guide-computer-sciences-it
Geek IS the new Chic 
Cool stuff. Was the gender stuff from unistats? I’m gonna have a look at Uni of Nottingham.
our female rate was 16% – not bad!
Not bad at all!!! Will be doing a comparison with all uni’s in the table soon. Really interesting to see how they all perform in terms of attracting women to the universities 🙂
i thought you said ‘in terms of attractive women…’ – its people like me causing the problems, dammit! i really liked this xckd – http://xkcd.com/385/ – really on the ball (except your point about finding women with a-level maths.
Hi Reena,
Interesting.
I’m interested in the statistical significance.
I am guessing that 1% approximates one person here.
So 11-13 is not a significant measure on an annual basis – the odd student deferring entry would make a difference.
In fact 11-15 is probably not significant?
But I’m guessing that Liverpool on the one hand (more women) and Bristol & York on the other (fewer women), with others around a normality, is sort of what I should infer as significant?
Best
Hugh
Heya! That is a really good point – I have literally (just now) got hold of some raw data so will be able to do another post in a day or so – with the numbers of people – so its a bit more useful than the percentages. Once I’ve collated it all (its a nightmare to get together) I’ll put it up on a spreadsheet and share it with the world!!! Watch this space!
Saw a RT of this from Mike Jewell’s tweets. There’s also the lack of female role models in the computer science industry. I think a lot of young women just can’t imagine themselves working in the field, compared to say the biological sciences. (Or even fashion, media, social work). There are some very successful females in the industry, like Wendy or Google’s Marissa Mayer. But I don’t think they are very well known amongst high school girls.
Thats a great point Sylvia… i think that there are lots of issues and role models certainly is one. Maybe we need to talk about how to use the role models we have in order to show the world it is all possible.
Role model is an interesting question (as well).
It should be a role model for a role that a woman wants and can see herself in.
Do you think Wendy and Marissa Mayer look they have roles that women who might go into the computer science industry will identify with?
In comparison, do men see TimBL and Bill Gates as role models whose roles they want to have?
I suspect the vast majority do not, if pressed to decide.
Does the research suggest that candidates for the lumpen proletariat of computer science industry canon fodder are encouraged by seeing the high-profile winners?
You’ve got me thinking about who I might see as a role model myself.
So who is it that seems to have had a career that I would think is the sort of career that I would like to have (or in my case, ‘have had’!)?
And in the gender studies world, are they high flyers like Wendy and Marissa Mayer, or other women we don’t know?
Hi, in my PhD and postdoc research, parents motivated their daughters to study computing. By parents, it was normally father figures, who knew about computing through either working in it or knowing about it. So young people may see their fathers as role models? its an interesting question.
Yes – it has always seemed interesting to me that people seem to assume that a role model has to be the same gender. Of course a gender role model does. But in general the assumption seems to me to be rather limiting and stereotyping – and it is certainly the case that the rising generations don’t see the delineation of gender roles in the same way as older generations. And of course making a big thing about it encourages people to see their relation to society more strongly in terms of gender.