L/earning a living: practices and recognition of women’s on‐the‐job and informal learning in the information technology field

Abstract

Information technology (IT) has been characterized as central to globalization and nation‐states’ competitive edge in the global economy. A highly masculinized field, IT is paradoxically characterized as gender‐neutral, a field which expands opportunities for women’s career and income development. For these reasons, feminist researchers regard it as an interesting context in which to explore contemporary issues of gender, learning and work. Based in Canada, our study broadens the scope of the literature in this area, extending the conceptualization of the IT field beyond its central occupations such as computer programming, software engineering and network administration, to niches such as technical communication, project and operations management and even librarianship and secretarial jobs. In this article, we focus on how gender has shaped the learning pathways and the politics of recognition experienced and articulated by women working across the IT field. We have purposefully gathered work and learning histories of women without formal IT credentials. Their stories offer an important counter‐narrative to the neo‐liberal discourse of equality and re‐insert informal learning into the mainstream discourse of lifelong learning.

Notes

1. This article is an expansion of a presentation delivered at the conference Rethinking Work and Learning: Research Findings and Policy Challenges, Toronto, Ontario, 4–6 June 2006.

2. We use the word ‘field’ when we talk about IT work, rather than ‘sector’, which tends to be limited to so‐called high‐tech areas such as software and hardware development. Our point is that IT work is bigger than that sector. We use the term ‘niche’ to identify emerging areas in IT where many women tend to gravitate. We are using these terms in a professional (not theoretical) sense, much as someone might say that she works in the field of marketing, specializing in the niche of sportswear. In this conception of the IT field, the more a niche is associated with support or end‐use, rather than programming or development, the more peripheral it is.

3. This study is a partnership between researchers at the University of British Columbia and A Commitment to Employment and Training for Women (ACTEW), a membership‐based association of non‐profit providers of training programmes for women based in Toronto, Ontario. We would also like to acknowledge the work of Danielle Thibodeau and Melanie Knight, for their contribution to earlier phases of this study. This is one of 12 case studies in the Work and Lifelong Learning (WALL) network, which focused on changing working conditions and lifelong learning in the new economy. The network was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For further details about the WALL network, see http://www.wallnetwork.ca.

4. The ‘snowball’ method refers to the generation of potential participants through participants’ referrals.

5. The ‘snowball’ sampling method might have produced this racial homogeneity in our sample.

6. Given the young age of some of our participants, we are hesitant in explaining this observation conclusively. Certainly, several participants spoke to us about the challenges in achieving a sense of work/family‐life balance in a field which makes intensive demands on time and energy. On the other hand, we recognize that family status might change for many of the participants in the coming years.