Abstract:

ualitative research conducted with specific focus groups in areas representative of Greece - urban, industrial and agricultural populations, confirms the gender impact factor on digital illiteracy. A large part of the population in Greek society today is displaying technophobia, women in particular, as is the case internationally. Gender-constrained attitudes against science and technology are formulated very early. The compatibility of private life and career is essentially a female problem, a factor that is clearly evident in the latest EU average employment quota for women which is marked by a decrease of 14.3 percent, in contrast to the 5.6 percent increase in the employment quota for men. The situation is even worse in the science and technology fields. Alarming are the results of the latest study of the EU-Commission ‘She Figures 2006’, according to which women remain a minority among researchers in the EU. The first part of the study is based on questionnaires, group interviews and discourse analyses with specific focus group: (1) female and male university students, (2) female students, and (3) primary and secondary male and female school teachers. In the second unity, social theories and theoretical approaches are used to examine the multivariable inclusive vs. exclusionary factors that result in the ‘leaky pipeline’ and the ‘glass ceiling’, namely the digital divide, the under-representation of women in science and technology. Although efforts are being made to attract women to the knowledge economy and IT professions, educational reforms alone will have very limited impact without the systematic promotion of inter and multidisciplinary research, international collaborations, interdisciplinarity in Education, the promotion of a gender-inclusive labor market that recruits and retains women as well as the establishment of a more flexible and family-friendly oriented working environment. *************KEYWORDS:  

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