CAREER: Black Feminist Epistemologies: Building a Sisterhood in Computing

学院早期职业发展(Career)计划是国家科学基金会范围内的一项活动，旨在为有潜力在研究和教育中充当学术榜样的早期教师提供支持，在其部门或组织的使命中领导进步，并为终身领导教育和研究的整合奠定基础。这个职业项目探讨了目前正在攻读本科计算机学位课程的黑人女性的中学后经历，以引起人们对黑人女性在计算机领域忍受的种族和性别不平等的关注。尽管努力有意增加计算机领域妇女的招聘和留住，但黑人妇女的比例仍然严重偏低。注重性别的努力未能增加黑人女性在计算机领域的数量，因为他们没有认识到种族和性别的交集如何影响黑人女性的经历，包括她们在计算机领域的留存。最近的研究表明，黑人女性在以白人为主的机构(PWI)注册的本科计算机学位课程证明，缺乏支持、指导和资源阻碍了她们完成学位的能力。一些人选择退出这些计划。这些结果表明，明确关注在PWI注册的黑人女性的额外研究对于解决黑人女性在计算机领域代表性不足的问题至关重要。它与美国国家科学院最近的报告一致，该报告建议研究有色人种女性在职业生涯的关键时刻的经历。这个项目利用黑人女权主义认识论和黑人妇女的认识方式，作为这项研究的关键框架。该项目利用姐妹圈的概念来创造对抗空间，以建立社区和抵抗结构性压迫。姐妹圈放大了黑人女性的声音，因为她们正在进行亲密的对话，谈论在各自的计算机学位项目中导航的经历。此外，黑人女性本科生将分享有关结构性压迫如何在计算机教育背景下运作的信息，并设计抵抗结构性压迫的策略。这项研究的结果将产生经验性的、深入的知识，了解黑人女性本科生在PWI计算学位课程中的经历，确定他们进步过程中的关键转折点，预测黑人女性坚持计算的能力。此外，还将开发姐妹圈工具包，使公共信息机构能够在计算机领域建立一个支持黑人妇女的有效社区。这个社区包括获得近乎同行的导师、资源和关于职业发展机会的信息，以此作为应对黑人女性在高等教育中经历的压迫和创伤的对策。该项目由STEM教育核心研究理事会(ECR)计划资助，该计划支持推进STEM学习和学习环境的基础研究、扩大对STEM的参与以及STEM劳动力发展的工作。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。

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization, and to build a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. This CAREER project explores the postsecondary experiences of Black women currently enrolled in undergraduate computing degree programs to draw attention to racial and gender inequalities that Black women in computing endure. Despite efforts to intentionally increase the recruitment and retention of women in the field of computing, Black women remain acutely underrepresented. Gender-focused efforts have fallen short of increasing the number of Black women in computing because they fail to acknowledge how the intersection of race and gender shape Black women’s experiences, including their retention in the field of computing.Recent studies reveal that Black women enrolled in undergraduate computing degree programs at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) attest to the lack of support, mentorship, and resources that impede their ability to complete their degrees. Some choose to withdraw from these programs. Such results suggest that additional research explicitly focused on Black women enrolled at PWIs is essential for addressing the underrepresentation of Black women in computing. It aligns with the recent National Academies of Science Report, which recommends examining the experiences of women of color at critical junctures throughout their career. This project leverages Black feminist epistemologies and Black women’s ways of knowing, as critical frameworks of this research. The project utilizes the concept of sister circles to create counter spaces to build community and resist structural oppression. Sister circles amplify the voices of Black women as they engage in intimate conversations about experiences navigating their respective computing degree programs students. Additionally, Black women undergraduate computing students will share information about how structural oppression operates in the context of computing education and devise strategies to resist structural oppression. Results from this research will generate empirical, in-depth knowledge of Black women undergraduate students’ experiences in computing degree programs at PWIs, identifying critical inflection points during their progression that predict Black women’s ability to persist in computing. Additionally, a sister circle toolkit will be developed that enables PWIs to build an effective community of support for Black women in computing. This community includes access to near-peer mentors, resources, and information about career development opportunities as a countermeasure to the oppression and trauma that Black women experience in higher education. This project is funded by the Directorate for STEM Education Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.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.