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Culture and environment as determinants of women's participation in computing: revealing the "women-CS fit"

Authors:

M. Bernardine DiasAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, Volume 38, Issue 1

Pages 22 - 26

https://doi.org/10.1145/1124706.1121351

Published: 03 March 2006 Publication History

Abstract

There are some arguments that suggest women need academic handholding, such as a "female friendly" curriculum, in order for them to participate and be successful in computer science and related fields. Then there are other arguments that suggest we need to change the field to suit women or help women adjust to the field. In this paper we present a different perspective that shows none of these may be necessary. The "Women-CS Fit" is already there! Specifically, under certain cultural and environmental conditions we can see that women fit very well into computing fields and what we have been attributing to gender is actually the result of cultural and environmental conditions. The reasons for women participating in -- or not participating in -- the field of computer science have little to do with gender and a lot to do with culture. In other words, we need to recognize that this is a cultural issue, and an issue that concerns us all. Appropriate local interventions in the micro-culture can have large effect. This argument is illustrated in this paper by three case studies.

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Cited By

Kube DGombert SSuter BWeidlich JKreijns KDrachsler H(2023)Hacking gender in computer‐supported collaborative learning: The experience of being in mixed‐gender teams at a computer science hackathonJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1290540:6(2513-2527)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12905
Rankin YThomas JErete S(2021)Real talkACM Inroads10.1145/346340612:2(30-37)Online publication date: 10-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3463406
Rankin YThomas JErete S(2021)Black Women Speak: Examining Power, Privilege, and Identity in CS EducationACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/345134421:4(1-31)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3451344
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Index Terms

Culture and environment as determinants of women's participation in computing: revealing the "women-CS fit"
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 38, Issue 1

March 2006

553 pages

ISSN:0097-8418

DOI:10.1145/1124706

Issue’s Table of Contents

SIGCSE '06: Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
March 2006
612 pages
ISBN:1595932593
DOI:10.1145/1121341
Program Chairs:
Doug Baldwin
SUNY Geneseo
,
Paul Tymann
Rochester Institute of Technology
,
Susan Haller
SUNY Potsdam
,
Ingrid Russell
University of Hartford

Copyright © 2006 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 03 March 2006

Published in SIGCSE Volume 38, Issue 1

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Cited By

Kube DGombert SSuter BWeidlich JKreijns KDrachsler H(2023)Hacking gender in computer‐supported collaborative learning: The experience of being in mixed‐gender teams at a computer science hackathonJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1290540:6(2513-2527)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12905
Rankin YThomas JErete S(2021)Real talkACM Inroads10.1145/346340612:2(30-37)Online publication date: 10-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3463406
Rankin YThomas JErete S(2021)Black Women Speak: Examining Power, Privilege, and Identity in CS EducationACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/345134421:4(1-31)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3451344
Rankin YThomas JErete SSherriff MMerkle LCutter PMonge ASheard J(2021)Real Talk: Saturated Sites of Violence in CS EducationProceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3408877.3432432(802-808)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3408877.3432432
Fronza ICorral LPahl CIaccarino GKhazanchi DSiy HGrispos GKwaku Setor T(2020)Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Coding Camp through the Analysis of a Follow-up ProjectProceedings of the 21st Annual Conference on Information Technology Education10.1145/3368308.3415391(248-253)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3368308.3415391
Cain CTrauth E(2017)Black Men in ITACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems10.1145/3084179.308418448:2(35-51)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3084179.3084184
Denner JLyon LWerner L(2015)Does Gender Matter? Women Talk about Being Female in College Computing ClassesProceedings of the Third Conference on GenderIT10.1145/2807565.2807712(44-48)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2807565.2807712
Saariluoma POulasvirta A(2010)User Psychology: Re-assessing the Boundaries of a DisciplinePsychology10.4236/psych.2010.1504101:05(317-328)Online publication date: 2010
https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2010.15041
Cain CTrauth E(2017)Black Men in ITACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems10.1145/3084179.308418448:2(35-51)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3084179.3084184
Gal-Ezer JStephenson C(2014)A Tale of Two CountriesACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/260248314:2(1-18)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2602483
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