CAREER: Valuing the Social in Engineering and Computer Science

工程和计算机科学（ECS）塑造了我们的社会，政治和经济环境，但努力吸引和留住从业者的多样性。为什么ECS在性别平等方面仍然顽固地隔离？这个职业项目的目标是利用人种学来比较妇女参与程度不同的就业竞争战略的各个分领域。它调查了文化价值观，规范和实践之间的关系，1）假设来自主导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）优先考虑计算的技术层面。妇女在环境竞争战略各分领域的参与程度不均衡，这表明各分领域的文化价值观和规范各不相同。为了研究这种变化，该项目主要侧重于女性教师的经验，因为她们是塑造下一代ECS从业者的关键人群，与她们的学科子领域有着长期的关系，并且可能有经验可以提供对社会/技术鸿沟的重要见解。该项目的调查结果阐明并开拓了扩大参与ECS的途径，因为它们为学习模块和课程提供信息，以教育学生，教师和学术界领导人了解多样性和变革的好处，以促进妇女以平等机会，资源和尊重参与ECS的欢迎环境。由于ECS的重要性和影响力，确定该领域的性别不平等并打破它们将有助于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所影响的所有领域做出积极贡献。这个职业生涯项目是对子领域文化对妇女在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，以了解复杂的交叉偏见如何剥夺妇女的权利。为了产生有助于扩大参与的新知识，这个职业生涯项目系统地概念化劳动隔离如何与计算的社会和技术层面之间的意识形态等级关系，并影响沿着交叉的性别和种族向量的文化排斥。该项目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，致力于：1）开发和完善ECS变革的理论模型，以打击使妇女边缘化的隐性和显性机制;（二）描述和分析认识偏见出现的意识形态，认为经验数据上级的定性数据和轻视社会应用研究，ECS;（3）确定和评估在ECS中再现或挑战不平等权力关系的文化因素;（4）描述妇女在ECS子领域中的不同经历，沿着种族、民族和性别认同的载体;第五章）发展和分析教育干预到ECS文化，从一个原始的方法结合民族志和个案研究方法，既中断了占主导地位的阶级规则的复制，并研究计算社区的信念和权力关系。该项目不仅为ECS中的文化变革提供了一种新的定性理论，还测试了创新方法，以更好地阐明该领域中的谁和什么以及为什么。此外，它还创造了高度适应性和可持续性的技术，为工程师提供了实践机会，以识别和应对社会动态中的偏见，并在与同行的交流中阐明体制变革的手段。最后，该项目提供了急需的人类学理论，以解决妇女在ECS中代表性不足的问题，以促进支持和利用代表性不足群体的能力的包容性教育实践，该奖项反映了NSF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.