Power relations in IT education and work: the intersectionality of gender, race, and class

Proceedings of the 50th Annual Conference on Computers and People Research

Cain

Joshi

et al. 2012

Self Cite

Results of an examination of with-gender variation in gender stereotypes about the skills and knowledge in the IT profession demonstrates the value of applying an intersectionality perspective in the study of under represented groups in the IT field. Focusing on gender or ethnicity, alone, is insufficient to explain the under representation of women and minorities in IT careers. Rather, we believe that stratifying the population in a more nuanced manner, such as by gender within ethnic group, provides deeper insights into the phenomenon of under representation. Hence, this research approaches the topic of gender and the IT profession from the perspective of intersectionality of gender and ethnicity. Within-gender analysis reveals variation in gender stereotyping by gender-ethnic group. White females and minority males (i.e. Black and Hispanic males) exhibited the most masculine stereotyping of IT skills. In contrast, White males and minority females (i.e. Black and Hispanic females) exhibited the fewest. Three themes emerge from this research. First, the skills that will be increasingly important in the future in distinguishing equivalently credentialed IT professionals were not absorbed into the "masculine" category. Second, hegemonic masculine traits appear to be deeply entrenched in the next generation of IT professionals. Third, when peering more deeply into the gender stereotyping of skills by respondent demographics, what emerges is a pattern that emphasizes the critical role of intersectionality in gender analyses of the IT profession.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embracing intersectionality in gender and IT career choice research

Proceedings of the 50th Annual Conference on Computers and People Research

Cain

Joshi

et al. 2012

Self Cite

“…But only ten of these papers have considered the topic of race or ethnicity [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Trauth's [12] review of papers on the topic gender and IS that were published in IS journals between 1992 and 2012 shows a similar pattern: only two out of 132 journal articles addressed the topic of race or ethnicity [13,14]. An additional paper was published in 2013 [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Career Choice of African American Men Majoring in Information Technology

Fuller

Kvasny

Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research

et al. 2015

Self Cite

A diverse workforce is essential for developing the nation's technological innovation, economic vitality, and global competitiveness. Yet, the under-representation of women, Latinos and African Americans has persisted in the field. In this study, we focus on African American male undergraduates majoring in information technology (IT). Despite the bleak numbers of African American males in IT there are still those who persist and graduate from a university and enter the workforce. To gain insights into those who do persist, we used a digital inequality framework to inform a qualitative study of undergraduates at two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). We conducted interviews with 20 African American males to uncover factors that contribute to their choice to pursue an IT major. The findings reveal that the five constructs from this framework (technical apparatus, digital skill, social support, autonomy of use, and purpose of use) in addition to two new constructs (work ethic and IT career exposure) help to explain how and why African American males choose IT majors. The study contributes to the limited literature on African American men's academic success, and helps to clarify some of the mixed and contradictory findings about their career choices that exist in the current literature.

“…Because of its focus on within-gender variation due to individual and group effects, this theory has also been used to explore within-gender variation resulting from the intersectionality of gender and other identity characteristics such as race. For example, [27] applied this theory in an examination of variation among African American women with respect to their engagement with IT.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding underrepresentation in IT through intersectionality

Proceedings of the 2012 iConference

Cain

Joshi

et al. 2012

Self Cite

Results of an investigation of the effect of intersectionality on perceptions of university students about IT careers are presented. This analysis deepens the discussion began at the 2011 iConference by presenting an examination of responses of African American males and females on the topic of gender norms and stereotypes about IT professionals. The findings provide evidence of the influence of race on gender stereotypes that individuals hold about the IT field. Gender differences in stereotypes reveal within-race variation in perceptions about the IT field. IT skills perceived by African American females as feminine are nearly identical to those found across all participants in the study. In contrast, African American males did not identify any skills as feminine. These results suggest that finer grained analysis of under representation in the IT field can be achieved by pursuing the intersectionality of gender and race.