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Good practice Imported

Girls Who Code — Closing the Computer Science Gender Gap Through Summer Programmes

United States of America · New York City · See the United States of America profile · See the New York City profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 44% 74/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Girls Who Code runs U.S. summer programmes teaching coding to high-school girls and non-binary students. An independent AIR study found participants were 11-13 points more likely than matched peers to declare a computer-science college major.

13.2 percentage points
SIP participants more likely to declare a CS major than matched comparison group (2020–2021 cohort)
11.5 percentage points
SPP participants more likely to declare a CS major than matched comparison group (2020–2021 cohort)
37%
Women's share of US computer-science degrees (1995)
22%
Women's share of US computer-science degrees (2022)
Girls Who Code — Closing the Computer Science Gender Gap Through Summer Programmes

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Girls Who Code
Period
2012–present
Keywords
technology education, computer science, youth development, digital skills

Context

Nationally, women's share of computer-science degrees fell from 37% in 1995 to 22% in 2022 — the backdrop that Girls Who Code, a U.S. non-profit founded in 2012, is designed to address by closing the gender gap in computer science.

Activities

Girls Who Code runs free Summer Immersion (SIP) and Self-Paced (SPP) programmes teaching coding, computational thinking and career exposure to high-school-age girls and non-binary students.

Results

The American Institutes for Research (AIR) conducted a federally catalogued evaluation (ERIC ED647331) comparing participants in the 2020–2021 virtual SIP and SPP to a matched comparison group. SIP and SPP participants were found to be 13.2 and 11.5 percentage points more likely, respectively, to declare a computer-science-related college major, with positive effects holding across white, Black and Hispanic/Latina participants and those with no prior CS background.

Conclusions

The evaluation covers virtual programme cohorts during the pandemic period and measures intent to major in CS rather than degree completion or career entry, so longer-term and in-person outcomes are not directly evidenced by this study.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

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Data sources

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