CAREER: Valuing the Social in Engineering and Computer Science

工程与计算机科学（ECS）塑造了我们的社会、政治和经济环境，但却难以吸引和留住各种各样的从业者。为什么在性别平等问题上，ECS仍然顽固地保持隔离？这个CAREER项目的目标是使用人种学来比较妇女参与程度不同的ECS子领域。它调查了文化价值观、规范和实践之间的关系，1)假设来自优势群体的从业者比来自代表性不足群体的从业者更有能力；2)将计算的技术维度置于社会维度之上。妇女在ECS子领域的参差不齐表明子领域的文化价值观和规范各不相同。为了研究这种差异，本项目主要关注女性教师的经验，因为她们是塑造下一代ECS从业者的关键群体，与她们的学科子领域有着长期的关系，并且可能拥有可以为社会/技术鸿沟提供关键见解的经验。该项目的研究结果阐明并开辟了扩大ECS参与的途径，因为它们为学习模块和课程设置提供了信息，以教育学生、教师和学术界领导人了解多样性的好处，以及为妇女在平等机会、资源和尊重的情况下参与ECS创造友好环境所需的变革。由于ECS的突出和影响，识别该领域的性别不平等并打破它们将有助于从一系列交叉身份中欢迎和留住更多有才华的女性。以这种方式利用多样性的力量将对计算机所影响的所有领域作出积极贡献。这个CAREER项目是对子领域文化对女性在ECS中的代表性的影响的比较分析。它解构了支撑ECS实践的理论假设，以理解复杂的、交叉的偏见是如何剥夺女性在该领域的权利的。为了产生有助于扩大参与的新知识，本CAREER项目系统地概念化了劳动隔离如何与计算的社会和技术维度之间的意识形态等级联系起来，并沿着性别和种族的交叉向量影响文化排斥。采用理论驱动的跨学科研究方法，将性别和种族平等研究、人类学和科学技术研究相结合，该CAREER项目致力于：1)开发和完善ECS变化的理论模型，以对抗将妇女边缘化的隐蔽和公开机制；2)描述和分析由于认为经验数据优于定性数据和轻视ECS社会应用研究的意识形态而产生的认知偏差；3)识别和评估ECS中再现或挑战不公平权力关系的文化要素；4)沿着种族、民族和性别认同的向量描述女性在ECS子领域的不同经历；5)开发和分析对ECS文化的教育干预，这种干预源于整合民族志和案例研究方法的原始方法，既可以中断统治阶级统治的再生产，又可以研究计算机社区的信仰和权力关系。该项目不仅为ECS的文化变迁提供了一个全新的定性理论，而且还测试了一些创新方法，以更好地阐明在该领域中谁和什么重要以及为什么重要。此外，它创造了高度适应性和可持续的技术，为工程师提供了机会，练习识别和应对社会动态中的偏见，并在与同行交流时阐明制度变革的手段。最后，该项目为女性在ECS中的代表性不足问题提供了急需的人类学理论，以推进包容性教育实践，支持和利用代表性不足群体的才能。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) shapes our social, political and economic environments, yet struggles to attract and retain a diversity of practitioners. Why does ECS remain stubbornly segregated when it comes to gender parity? The goal of this CAREER project is to use ethnography to compare subfields of ECS in which women have different levels of participation. It investigates the relationship between cultural values, norms and practices that 1) presume practitioners from dominant groups are more competent than practitioners from underrepresented groups; and 2) privilege the technical dimensions of computing over the social ones. The uneven participation of women across ECS subfields suggests that subfield cultural values and norms vary. To examine this variation, this project focuses primarily on the experiences of female faculty members because they are a critical population that shape the next generation of ECS practitioners, have a long-standing relationships with their disciplinary subfields, and may have experiences that could lend critical insights into the social/technical divide. The project's findings articulate and forge pathways toward broadening participation in ECS because they inform learning modules and course curricula to educate students, faculty, and leaders in academia about the benefits of diversity and transformations required to foster welcoming environments for women to participate in ECS with equal opportunities, resources and regard. Due to the prominence and impact of ECS, identifying gender inequities in the field and interrupting them will help welcome and retain more talented women from a range of intersectional identities. Harnessing the power of diversity in this way will positively contribute to all domains on which computing impinges.This CAREER project is a comparative analysis of the impact of subfield culture on women's representation in ECS. It deconstructs theoretical assumptions undergirding ECS practices to understand how complex, intersectional biases disenfranchise women from the field. To yield new knowledge useful in efforts to broaden participation, this CAREER project systematically conceptualizes how labor segregation may relate to an ideological hierarchy between the social and technical dimensions of computing and influence cultural exclusions along intersecting vectors of gender and race. Using a theory-driven, interdisciplinary research approach that integrates gender and racial equity research, anthropology and science and technology studies, this CAREER project works to: 1) Develop and refine a theoretical model of change in ECS to combat the covert and overt mechanisms that marginalize women; 2) Describe and analyze epistemic bias emerging from ideologies that consider empirical data superior to qualitative data and trivialize socially applied research in ECS; 3) Identify and assess elements of culture in ECS that reproduce or challenge inequitable power relations; 4) Describe women's differential experiences in ECS subfields along vectors of race, ethnicity, and gender identity; 5) Develop and analyze educational interventions into ECS culture that spring from an original method integrating ethnography and case study methods to both interrupt the reproduction of dominant class rule and to study the beliefs and power relations of computing communities. Not only does this project contribute a novel qualitative theory of cultural change in ECS, it also tests innovative methods to better elucidate who and what counts in the field and why. Further, it creates highly adaptable and sustainable techniques that provide opportunities for engineers to practice recognizing and responding to bias in social dynamics and articulating means of institutional change in communion with their peers. Finally, this project provides much needed anthropological theory to the problem of women's underrepresentation in ECS to advance inclusive educational practices that support and capitalize on the aptitudes of underrepresented groups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.