Women in Computer Science

For this week’s unit, Gender at work, I chose to focus my investigation on gender in the computing industry. More specifically, the goal of my research was to uncover some of the reasons behind the lack of female representation in the computer science world. As a minority in computer science, this investigation has been very personal to me because it has allowed me to learn more about some of the institutional oppressors that have been adopted over time to further marginalize minority populations and allow a certain demographic to flourish. As you may have learned from our previous discussions and explorations in Sociology, that demographic is the average white, able-bodied, Christian male. I have reviewed a plethora of scholarly articles and have made note of some of the frequent themes that have led to the lack of female representation in computer science, and have compiled all these claims and conversations into this presentation. My findings have been astonishing, to say the least, and I am happy to share this information with you in the slides to come.https://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/gender_studies/1064/thumbnail.jp

Voicing Code in STEM

An exploration of coding that investigates the interplay between computational abstractions and the fundamentally interpretive nature of human experience. The importance of coding in K–12 classrooms has been taken up by both scholars and educators. Voicing Code in STEM offers a new way to think about coding in the classroom—one that goes beyond device-level engagement to consider the interplay between computational abstractions and the fundamentally interpretive nature of human experience. Building on Mikhail Bakhtin's notions of heterogeneity and heteroglossia, the authors explain how STEM coding can be understood as voicing computational utterances, rather than a technocentric framing of building computational artifacts. Empirical chapters illustrate this theoretical stance by investigating different framings of coding as voicing. Understanding the experiential nature of coding allows us to design better tools and curricula for students, and enables us to see computing as experience beyond the mastery of symbolic power. Arguing for a critical phenomenology of coding, the authors explain that the phenomenological dimension refocuses attention on the fundamentally complex nature of human experiences that are involved in coding and learning to code. The critical dimension involves learning to recognize voices that historically have received less attention

A study in engaging female students in computer science using role models

An effective approach to engaging young women to take computing in higher education is to provide examples of successful female computer scientists. Can a print publication that combines core computing concepts with inspiring stories of women in the field be effective? In this paper, we describe a campaign that distributed a 60 - page booklet on women in computing to UK secondary schools. We analyse the initial response from teachers, and draw some general conclusions from the project. Teachers expressed strong enthusiasm for the booklet, and also report the desire for recruitment and retention of girls in their computing programmes. They had confidence in the potential for this booklet to inspire young women to take computing

Computing! Shifting the Paradigm by Describing Female's Attitudes Towards Computing

The careers of the 21st Century influence every aspect of society's workforce and contribute to occupations found within the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) pathways. While the growth of the number of technical occupations is increasing; the number of females studying or starting careers in computer science is decreasing. The decline of females in computer science career fields has serious consequences for their education and careers in technology fields. The ability to provide material that has deep meaning for females is the key to creating a curriculum that appeals to female students. One key to increasing enrollment into computer science careers and majors at college is by making the introductory courses more enjoyable for students. The students' perception of themselves and computer science education or career choice are often that it is not an attainable degree for them as females. The representation of females into computer science careers is relatively low and decreasing at an alarming rate. Career exploration is necessary for both the student and the parent to provide career benefits along with positive work outcomes for the student involved. The findings showed that adult and high school females had a higher confidence level with computing, which indicated they are probably more confident using computers even though the scores indicated uncertainty about favoring computers. The final conclusion was female students were uncertain or not sure about their attitudes toward computing.KEYWORDS: STEM, MNTC, IT, career exploration, helicopter parent, mentor, gender specific, Likert-type scaleEducation (PhD

Os impulsionadores das mulheres na profissão de programação

As mulheres na computação são minoria em relação aos homens e, mesmo as mulheres sendo as pioneiras na computação, quando se trata de mercado de trabalho, esta representatividade diminui ainda mais. Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar os impulsionadores que levam as mulheres a escolherem a computação como profissão. Com esse intuito, o estudo trouxe um caráter exploratório e descritivo com abordagem qualitativa. Um método indutivo com procedimento ex-post facto foi utilizado a fim de obter os objetivos do trabalho. Para isto, realizou-se entrevista com as participantes através de um roteiro semi-estruturado online via plataforma Microsoft Teams, onde se obteve um total de 7 participantes. Os dados foram analisados com base na revisão teórica relativa à contextualização da mulher no mercado de trabalho, motivação, carreira feminina e escolhas de carreira e também o perfil do profissional de programação. Os resultados foram que as mulheres não sofreram pressão da família para escolher a profissão; escolheram a profissão por afinidade com a área de exatas, principalmente matemática e física; gostam de resolver desafios. Concluiu-se que não houve intimidação na escolha da profissão por serem mulheres ou pelo fato de ter maior concentração de homens na área.Women in computing are a minority in relation to men and, even though women are pioneers in computing, when it comes to the job market, this representation decreases even more. This work aims to analyze the drivers that lead women to choose computing as a profession. With this aim, the study brought an exploratory and descriptive character with a qualitative approach. An inductive method with ex-post facto procedure was used in order to obtain the objectives of the work. For this, an interview was carried out with the participants through a semi-structured online script via the Microsoft Teams platform, which resulted in a total of 7 participants. The data were analyzed based on the theoretical review concerning the contextualization of women in the job market, motivation, female career and career choices, as well as the profile of the programming professional. The results were that women were not pressured by the family to choose the profession; they chose the profession by affinity with the exact area, mainly mathematics and physics; like to solve challenges. It was concluded that there was no intimidation in choosing the profession because they are women or because there is a greater concentration of men in the area

An Essay on the Origin of Software Evolution

Abstract The biological domain holds interesting keys to the theorists who investigate the root causes of software maintenance. Several authors believe that software systems need to adapt to changing environment the way biological systems do. The objections raised against this generic comparison induced the author to attend additional lessons in biology. Living beings exploit three main forms of adaptation: intelligent, specialist and genetic (or Darwinian). Of these, intelligent adaptation appears to be the most appropriate form to be examined in relation to computational phenomena; besides, it fits with the fundamental ideas of Artificial Intelligence. This study shows how computers are adaptive devices, which aid general systems (companies, production lines, individuals etc.) to have successful behavior in the world. This assumption leads to the inference that the root-causes of software evolution and those of the software itself coincide. Finally, all the factors that affect software maintenance have been surveyed and a measure to handle the software maintenance processes suggested. Index Terms -Nature of software, software changes, intelligent adaptation, information systems, programs classification, software maintenance, management of software projects

Computers in Education

Computers, or in wider scope, information and communication technology (ICT), have had revolutionary impact on education. ICT is both merged to the education process and is supporting it. Computers and information technology are typical enabling technologies not in the focus itself, but when available, these are adopted in use. Performance of computers has grown exponentially: According to Moore's law processing power and RAM capacity is doubled in 1.5 years. The similar growth rate relates to mass memories and data transmission speed. During the era of computing (from the middle 1940s) information technology has gradually transferred to new areas of use. In the beginning, the computers themselves were in focus. In the 1970s microelectronics has been the key to changes: first personal computers, then networking and cloud technologies, further embedded intelligence of devices, distributed computing, complex software, wide access to heterogeneous data sources etc. have brought the computer to the growing number of applications, also in the education sector. The purpose of this paper is to have a look at the concept 'computers in education It has been the title of the conference track in Mipro over decades. It is widely handled in literature, journals, and other publications. These provide forum for experience transfer in the area, as well as encourage researchers to study the topic from the scientific direction. The paper is partially based on the experiences of the authors and aimed to clarify the term from a variety point of view.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Diversity in Computer Science

This is an open access book that covers the complete set of experiences and results of the FemTech.dk research which we have had conducted between 2016-2021 – from initiate idea to societal communication. Diversity in Computer Science: Design Artefacts for Equity and Inclusion presents and documents the principles, results, and learnings behind the research initiative FemTech.dk, which was created in 2016 and continues today as an important part of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen’s strategic development for years to come. FemTech.dk was created in 2016 to engage with research within gender and diversity and to explore the role of gender equity as part of digital technology design and development. FemTech.dk considers how and why computer science as a field and profession in Denmark has such a distinct unbalanced gender representation in the 21st century. This book is also the story of how we (the authors) as computer science researchers embarked on a journey to engage with a new research field – equity and gender in computing – about which we had only sporadic knowledge when we began. We refer here to equity and gender in computing as a research field – but in reality, this research field is a multiplicity of entangled paths, concepts, and directions that forms important and critical insights about society, gender, politics, and infrastructures which are published in different venues and often have very different sets of criteria, values, and assumptions. Thus, part of our journey is also to learn and engage with all these different streams of research, concepts, and theoretical approaches and, through these engagements, to identify and develop our own theoretical platform, which has a foundation in our research backgrounds in Human–Computer Interaction broadly – and Interaction Design & Computer Supported Cooperative Work specifically