Women\u27s experiences on the path to a career in game development

This chapter seeks to identify whether there is a dominant, presupposed career pipeline to a career in game development and then looks for women and women’s experiences at each stage of that pipeline. It concludes that a dominant pipeline does exist and that this pathway both disadvantages women who attempt it and marginalizes other pathways. Along the way women deal with obstacles that can delegitimize their choices and experiences and/or make the assumed pathway inhospitable. This chapter relies on published literature as well as data from the 2014 and 2015 Developer Satisfaction Surveys (DSS) conducted by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) in partnership with the authors

Going, Going, Gone: A Feminist Bourdieusian Analysis of Young Women's Trajectories in, Through and Out of Physics, Age 10–19

This chapter draws on longitudinal interview data collected from seven young woman in England who were tracked from age 10–19 and who had all expressed an aspiration at age 16 to study Advanced level (A level) physics. Applying a feminist Bourdieusian conceptual lens, we explore their trajectories in, through and out of physics: from Danielle, who is denied entry to A level physics; to Victoria and Thalia, who are debarred from the course before completion; to Davina, Kate and Mienie, who complete the A level but who choose not to pursue the subject further; and finally Hannah, who goes on to study physics at university. Attention is drawn to the pedagogic work conducted by the field of physics, notably the cultivation of habitus and hexis through the bodies, minds and identities of the young women, and its stringent gate-keeping practices, which ensure the reproduction of the elite status of the field and the simultaneous disadvantaging of women

Minority ethnic students and science participation: a qualitative mapping of achievement, aspiration, interest and capital

In the UK, the ‘leaky pipeline’ metaphor has been used to describe the relationship between ethnicity and science participation. Fewer minority ethnic students continue with science in post-compulsory education, and little is known about the ways in which they participate and identify with science, particularly in the secondary school context. Drawing on an exploratory study of 46 interviews and 22 h of classroom observations with British students (aged 11–14) from Black Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian and Chinese ethnic backgrounds, this paper identified five ‘types’ of science participation among minority ethnic students. The five types of science participation emerged from an analysis of students’ science achievement, science aspiration, science interest and science capital. The characteristics of the five types are as follows: Science adverse students have no aspirations towards science and lacked interest, achievement and capital in science. Science intrinsic students have high science aspirations, interest and capital but low science attainment. Students who are science intermediate have some aspirations, interest and capital in science, with average science grades. Science extrinsic students achieve highly in science, have some science capital but lacked science aspirations and/or interest. Science prominent students are high science achievers with science aspirations, high levels of interest and capital in science. The findings highlight that minority ethnic students participate in science in diverse ways. Policy implications are suggested for each type as this paper provides empirical evidence to counter against public (and even some academic) discourses of minority ethnic students as a homogeneous group

Understanding interactions in face-to-face and remote undergraduate science laboratories

This paper reviews the ways in which interactions have been studied, and the findings of such studies, in science education in both face-to-face and remote laboratories. Guided by a systematic selection process, 27 directly relevant articles were analysed based on three categories: the instruments used for measuring interactions, the research findings on student interactions, and the theoretical frameworks used in the studies of student interactions. In face-to-face laboratories, instruments for measuring interactions and the characterisation of the nature of interactions were prominent. For remote laboratories, the analysis of direct interactions was found to be lacking. Instead, studies of remote laboratories were mainly concerned with their practical scope. In addition, it is found that only a limited number of theoretical frameworks have been developed and applied in the research design. Existent theories are summarised and possible theoretical frameworks that may be implemented in studies of interactions in undergraduate laboratories are proposed. Finally, future directions for research on the interrelationship between student interactions and laboratory learning are suggested