Published: February 1, 1995

Future Mothers Of Invention

Moreover, the CTE study found that boys, unlike girls, find the workings of technological tools themselves as interesting as the machines' potential usefulness.

The trouble, center researchers say, is that the culture that has grown up around technology is more amenable to the masculine view. Even in schools, much of the software used mimics commercial computer games that appeal more to boys than to girls. This, the researchers maintain, may be one reason why women are underrepresented in technological fields.

With that in mind, the center has created Imagine, an educational software program and curriculum specifically designed to appeal to middle school-age girls and their particular take on technology. The hope is that it will engage them in technological design and engineering and ultimately draw them into those fields. "Boys are playing with these ideas a lot earlier than girls are,'' says Dorothy Bennett, one of the researchers who worked on the project. "You have to give girls...