What Would Grace Hopper Do? Reclaiming Women's Place in Computer Science
2019-12
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What Would Grace Hopper Do? Reclaiming Women's Place in Computer Science
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2019-12
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This dissertation investigated the experiences of college women pursuing computer science degrees at a mid-size university in the upper Midwest. Between the 1940s and 1960s computer programming was considered “women’s work,” but by the 1980s women were being systematically phased out as men recognized the importance (not to mention financial gain) of software development (Brewer, 2017). The percentage of undergraduate degrees in computer science awarded to women and employment in the field reflects the gendered attitudes towards computing. Undergraduate degrees awarded to women and the ratio of women employed in computing-related fields have been in decline in recent decades and are currently at 19 and 25 percent respectively (“Digest of Education Statistics,” 2018; Funk & Parker, 2018). The number of men entering computer science since the early 2000s has outpaced that of women, meaning that as an overall, the ratio of women in the field has gone down (Trapiani & Hale, 2019). Moreover, women tend to leave computer science degree programs at nearly twice the rate of their male counterparts (Chen, 2013; White & Massiha, 2016) and there does not appear to be any one definitive reason why women are leaving. Some suggested reasons include the dominant male hegemony, preconceived notions about what it means to “be technical,” stereotype threat, low confidence, and a lack of female peers and role models. The underrepresentation of women in computing is rooted in larger cultural issues; therefore, sociocultural theory and sense of belonging were the conceptual frameworks used to guide this dissertation. A case study design was selected for its ability to gain a deeper understanding of the women’s lived experiences within a specific context and how those experiences shaped their identity, self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and decisions to persist. Five women, studying software development and/or game development at North Central University participated in this research. The data used in this research included transcripts from two in-depth interviews with each of the participants, transcripts from interviews with the academic program directors, classroom observation field notes, and university enrollment numbers. Seven themes and eight sub-themes were derived from the data analysis, were deeply interconnected, and illustrated multiple aspects of the women’s experiences as students. The concept of duality, where the women were caught up in a continuous cycle of divergent cultural demands, was determined to be the most pivotal theme insomuch that it interacted with the remaining themes and shaped the women’s overall experiences. Five of the themes manifested out of the dichotomous value and belief systems between broader society and the computing micro-culture. The final theme demonstrated the necessity for academic support and mentorship. The findings of this dissertation indicate that there is hope, that there are women who persist in computing degrees, and that concerted efforts to make the computing micro-culture more inclusive show promise for bringing about gender equity. Universities can bring about change and improve women’s sense of belonging in the traditionally male-dominated micro-culture by deliberately building communities of women, providing support, demonstrating empathy, and ensuring women have role models. The findings also indicate that additional research and much more work is still needed to bring about gender parity in the field of computer science.
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University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.December 2019. Major: Education, Curriculum and Instruction. Advisor: Cassandra Scharber. 1 computer file (PDF); viii, 192 pages.
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Isaacson, Kris. (2019). What Would Grace Hopper Do? Reclaiming Women's Place in Computer Science. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/211764.
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