Nuancing the discourse of underrepresentation: a feminist post-structural analysis of gender inequality in computer science education in the US

ABSTRACT

Drawing on feminist post-structural perspectives, this article shows how the dominant discourses of underrepresentation and gender difference that characterize gender inequality in computer science (CS) create subject positions, which simultaneously mark women as highly invisible and visible. Narrative accounts from qualitative interviews and focus groups with women students of color enrolled in CS at a university located in the southwestern region of the US illustrate the situated ways in which participants materialized these discourses in their personal accounts of ‘not seeing and seeing women in CS.’ Participants accounts reveal how isolation, exclusion, and connection in CS are contextual, contingent, and intersectional experiences that cannot be collapsed into a single, monolithic meta-narrative. Participant accounts also demonstrate the complex ways that women students of color in CS pushed back on dominant discourses of underrepresentation and gender difference.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender inequality
• feminist post-structuralism
• discourse
• Latinx students
• computer science education

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the participants in this study for their time, their trust, and their insights. I would also like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful and very helpful feedback and suggestions on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Christina Convertino is an Assistant Professor of Sociocultural Foundations and an Educational Anthropologist at the University of Texas-El Paso.

Notes

1 Herein, western episteme refers to Enlightenment humanism, which involves the Cartesian logic of duality and a postivistic model of rationality (St. Pierre 2000). Within this view, gender includes the preformed, essentialized, and dualistic identity categories of man and woman, which each presume a particular set of qualities that are different.

2 The names of all persons and places used in this paper are pseudonyms.

3 A non-binary, gender-neutral term to refer to persons from Latin American origin or descent.

Additional information

Funding

This study is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under [grant number #P226100945A]. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF; NSF: BPC Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions [#CNS-1042341]; NSF: RED: A Model of Change for Preparing a New Generation for Professional Practice in Computer Science.