“What’s Your Problem?” ANT reflections on a research project studying Girls enrolment in Information Technology subjects in postcompulsory education

pre-pub draft. Co-authored with Leonie Rowan

Despite more than 30 years of gender reform in schools, the percentages of girls enrolled in information technology subjects in the post-compulsory years of education has remained persistently low: often under 25%.  This article investigates data collected during an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant project (2005-2007) focused on identifying the reasons for this under-representation, and ways in which the situation could be changed. The paper looks beyond the official recommendations of the project to explore how the research experience and the data combine to raise important questions about the limits of research in this area. We discuss the difference between the researchers’ perception of the problem under consideration, and the participants’ perception of the same issue. We use the resources of actor network to highlight the gaps, tensions and contradictions within the data and to ask key questions about the extent to which the enrolment of girls in IT is indeed ‘a problem’.