Gender Differences in Computer Education: A Costa Rican Case Study

Abstract

A time allocation study was designed to determine how two types of teachers spend their time in a primary school computer lab in Costa Rica. As a group, teachers of both types were found to allocate more of their time to boys than to girls. Moreover, boys were found to monopolize the primary teaching resource (the formally trained lab teacher), leaving girls to seek assistance from the secondary resource (their regular classroom teacher). Results of the study have important implications both for the anthropology of education and for Costa Rican society at large.