Enacting Agency: The Strategies of Women of Color in Computing (original) (raw)
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New enactments of mentoring and activism: U.S. women of color in computing education and careers
ICER ‘14 Proceedings of the tenth annual conference on international computing education research , 2014
In this paper we present themes from our National Science Foundation-funded projects, Beyond the Double Bind: Women of Color in STEM and Computing Beyond the Double Bind: Women of Color in Computing Education and Careers. The findings come from 14 interviews and 85 extant texts about 40 women of color. Our study contributes an analysis of how the intersection of gender and race affects career and education experiences in computing. We ask, What strategies work to enable U.S. women of color to achieve higher levels of advancement in computing education and careers? The findings bring to light new, emergent enactments of support, mentoring, and activism. This research will increase knowledge about success strategies to retain U.S. women of color, a population widely considered an untapped source of talent to fill the country’s and the world’s scientific workforce needs. The research may also provide other countries with new strategies to explore to retain and promote their underrepresented groups in computing.
Enabling courage: Agentic strategies of women of color in computing
2015 Research in Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2015
Since its inception, our project, Computing Beyond the Double Bind: Women of Color in Computing Education and Careers (CBDB), has sought to understand the factors that promote success for these women, who are vastly underrepresented in this field. We also seek to add to the existing knowledge base by highlighting how policy and practice can create increased opportunities. So far, we have reported on mentoring methods that support women of color, as well as a unique enactment of activism by women of color in computing. (We define activism as volunteer work in which women engage for the purpose of increasing diversity in the field.) Such activism is an example of a strategy in which women use their own agency to increase opportunities for others like them, a strategy we have found in other disciplines also indirectly supports their own success. What is not fully understood are the many ways women of color act directly, using their own agency to create success for themselves. These agentic strategies are the focus of our current analysis, the strategies they use rather than those enacted upon them by others. In this paper, we present findings from our interviews with women computing students and professionals of color, who describe their approaches, often inspired by those who teach, mentor and even challenge them. Among the most compelling findings are those strategies women employ when they witness the successes and failures of others, and are inspired to try new things.
The Status of Women of Color in Computer Science
Communications of the ACM, 2011
To remain economically and globally competitive, the United States needs to increase its advanced domestic science and technology workforce (National Academies, 2010). As U.S. colleges are already majority female and are increasingly enrolling more minority students, women of color represent a growing potential source of domestic talent to meet the needs of the country. Thus, it is in the interest of all of us to ensure that women of color are well represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
2020
Voices of African American Women in Computer Science is a qualitative dissertation about African American women who have successfully completed a computer science degree. This research explored how computer science education departments in predominantly White institutions (PWIs) contribute to the oppression of African American females. Critical race feminism (CRF) provides the platform that places the voices of women of color who have successfully obtained a computer science degree despite difficulties that have been imposed by the reality of racial biases that are present throughout the American education system and American culture at large. This research was guided by the following primary question: What are the unique experiences that have influenced the success of African American females who have obtained degrees in computer science from PWIs? In order to establish fulfilling narratives of the participants' experiences the following secondary questions are also relevant: What factors have influenced participants' decision to major in computer science? What were the experiences of the participants during their time in their computer science program? How do these women make meaning of their experiences? Both narrative analysis and analysis of narrative were used to interpret data gathered using detailed interviews. Findings were presented using both methods in an attempt to show a detailed use of data, as well as to also push the boundaries of CRF with the creation of guidelines for CRF methodology. The results show that African American xiii women in computer science have unique but powerful stories. This study highlights both positive, and negative factors that influenced these women during and after their academic experiences and fills gaps left by previous research in this area. Overall, this study holds implications for K-12 and higher education institutions as well as policy makers, and those who would simply pick up the torch of mentorship.
We are indebted to a number of people who have aided and supported us in bringing this report to fruition. First and foremost, we thank the project's NSF REESE program officer, Dr. Elmima Johnson, who has generously and steadfastly provided guidance and encouragement throughout the life of the project. We are grateful to the members of our advisory board -Drs. , for providing assistance and wisdom at critical moments throughout the project. A brilliant team of students, including Nicole Edine, Margo Fracek, Charleen Laughlin, and Katarina Miller, crucially contributed to the searches, data coding, and analysis. We thank all of the men and women, too numerous to mention here, who responded to our many letters and email, listserv, and conference calls for literature with author names, citations, articles, books, and cheers. We appreciate their generous support. Finally, we express our appreciation to all of the researchers who have done, and continue to do, work on the vitally important topic of women of color in STEM. May our numbers grow. This project was supported by the National Science Foundation, DRL #0635577.
Women of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
New Directions for Institutional Research, 2011
Scholars have theorized and examined women' s underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fi elds for well over thirty years . However, much of this research has paid little attention to issues of racial and ethnic diversity among women, suggesting that all women have the same experiences in STEM . Women of color were excluded from research designs, or when they were included their numbers were too small for any meaningful analysis . Some researchers did not describe the racial and ethnic composition of their samples, even if only to note that all of the participants were white women, or simply chose not to examine racial and ethnic differences in the design of the study . Ignoring race and ethnicity obscures important dimensions of women' s experiences in STEM and fosters the notion of a universal gender experience among women, without considering the differential experiences of women of color or the effects of racial privilege for white women . Women of color should not be further marginalized in a body of research that, in theory, is about transforming women' s underrepresentation in male-dominated academic disciplines and career fi elds.
Spotlight on Women of Color in STEM
Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2018
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.-Audre Lorde The focal article by Miner et al. (2018) convincingly argues that industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology professionals share a responsibility to adopt a social-structural perspective in understanding why women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This approach offers the best path forward for explaining the disparity and improving the attraction and retention of women in these fields (Miner et al., 2018). In conjunction with the approach described, a deliberate effort to cast a spotlight on women of color is necessary, as they are the most marginalized, yet are often excluded from conversations about gender equality. By discussing gender alone without an intentional focus on issues of race and ethnicity, we risk falling into a pitfall of progressive movementsof taking a White perspective as a default and excluding women of color. Thus, an intersectional lens is needed that focuses on the interplay among various complex identities, such as race, gender, and class, rather than examining them as separate (Crenshaw, 1991; Lorde, 1980). By considering the gender disparity in STEM from social-structural and intersectional perspectives simultaneously, we gain a more complete understanding of the issues of women in STEM and position ourselves toward building more inclusive solutions.
Journal for Multicultural Education, 2019
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the narratives of 93 Black women in computing in the USA to identify salient themes that are at the intersection of race and gender in the field of computer science.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a multi-method approach with a survey to describe the sample and a series of focus groups for in-depth analysis of themes. The qualitative methodology uses a grounded theory and consensual qualitative research approach with a research team that includes computer scientists and social scientists to collect and analyze data. Given the highly technical field of computer science and the intersectional experiences of the participants, this approach was optimal to capture and code data through the lens of Black women in computing.FindingsThe authors found four main themes that represented specific needs for Black women in the computing community. The first is the importance of linking Black women in computing (i.e. their recruitment, r...