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，但仍在努力吸引和留住多样化的从业者。为什么在性别平等方面，欧洲经济共同体仍然顽固地实行种族隔离？这一职业项目的目标是利用人种学比较妇女参与程度不同的ECS的各个子领域。它调查了文化价值观、规范和做法之间的关系，这些价值观、规范和做法1)假定来自占主导地位的群体的从业者比来自代表人数较少的群体的从业者更有能力；2)优先考虑计算的技术层面，而不是社会层面。ECS各分领域的妇女参与度参差不齐，这表明各分领域的文化价值观和规范各不相同。为了考察这一变化，本项目主要关注女性教职员工的经历，因为她们是塑造下一代ECS从业者的关键群体，与其学科子领域有着长期的关系，并且可能拥有有助于对社会/技术鸿沟进行批判性洞察的经验。该项目的发现阐明并开辟了扩大参与ECS的途径，因为它们为学习模块和课程课程提供信息，以教育学生、教师和学术界领导人关于多样性和变革的好处，这是为妇女以平等的机会、资源和尊重参与ECS所需的有利环境。由于ECS的重要性和影响，查明实地的性别不平等现象并加以制止，将有助于欢迎和留住来自各种不同身份的更多有才华的妇女。以这种方式利用多样性的力量将对计算影响的所有领域做出积极贡献。这个职业项目是对子领域文化对妇女在ECS中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、交叉的偏见如何剥夺妇女在该领域的权利。为了产生有助于扩大参与的新知识，这个职业项目系统地概念化了劳动力隔离可能如何与计算的社会和技术维度之间的意识形态等级关系，并影响性别和种族交叉向量的文化排斥。这个职业项目采用理论驱动的跨学科研究方法，整合了性别和种族平等研究、人类学和科学技术研究，致力于：1)开发和完善ECS变化的理论模型，以打击边缘化妇女的隐蔽和公开的机制；2)描述和分析从认为经验数据优于定性数据的意识形态中产生的认知偏见，并使ECS中的社会应用研究微不足道；3)识别和评估ECS中再现或挑战不公平权力关系的文化元素；4)描述妇女在ECS子领域的不同经历，包括种族、民族和性别认同；5)开发和分析ECS文化中的教育干预，这种干预源于一种整合了人种志和案例研究方法的原始方法，既中断了主导阶级规则的复制，又研究了计算社区的信仰和权力关系。这个项目不仅为欧洲共同体的文化变革提供了一种新颖的定性理论，而且还测试了一些创新的方法，以更好地阐明在该领域谁和什么是重要的以及为什么。此外，它创造了高度适应性和可持续的技术，为工程师提供机会，练习识别和应对社会动态中的偏见，并在与同行交流的过程中阐明制度变革的手段。最后，该项目为妇女在ECS中代表性不足的问题提供了亟需的人类学理论，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智力优势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.