During the Communist era, a number of countries in central and eastern
Europe produced large numbers of female technologists at a time when
many western countries were not doing so. Will this tendency survive t
he recent upheavals and the introduction of computer technology A samp
le of 227 Romanian students were compared with a similar sample of 136
Scottish students. They were presented with a questionnaire about use
of and attitudes towards computing. Romanians reported far less exper
ience of computers, but were far more positive about them than the Sco
ts. It was of particular interest that this applied to females as much
as to males. Parents of Romanian students were also fairly positive a
bout computers. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.