Sewing interest in E-textiles
Anne Weibert, Andrea Marshall, Konstantin Aal, Kai Schubert, Jennifer Ann Rode · 2014
In this paper we explore the appropriateness of e-textiles for teaching programming to mixed gender groups ages 8-12, allowing children to construct maker identities around technology. Our findings demonstrate the potential of e-textiles to promote girls' and boys' computational literacy, and the required craft and programming skills for making that can disrupt binary gender roles. We argue it allows both girls and boys to demonstrate technical mastery as well as to explore and construct a spectrum of gendered sociotechnical identities that might otherwise be obscured by conventional masculinist attitudes towards technology.