STEM Diversity and Inclusion Efforts for Women of Color: A Critique of the New Labor System
In this episode I unpack Scott and Elliott’s (2020) publication titled “STEM diversity and inclusion efforts for women of color: A critique of the new labor system,” which uses the metaphor of sharecropping to problematize the new labor system around STEM education and careers.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each episode of this podcast is either
an episode with a guest or multiple
guests or a solo episode where i unpack
some scholarship in relation to computer
science education in this week's
particular episode i'm unpacking a paper
titled stem diversity and inclusion
efforts for women of color colin a
critique of the new labor system this
paper is written by kimberly scott and
steve elliott here's the abstract for
this paper quote there are sustained
international efforts to increase the
number and percentage of people of color
who pursue stem education and careers
these initiatives are most widely
justified as means to provide human
capital for technology companies
particularly for women of color african
american native american latinx in the
u.s far too many digital inclusion
endeavors entrench women of color
sometimes unwittingly in a labor system
that treats them merely as commodities
as a result women of color either avoid
lives in computing or leave them to
display and critique some of the aspects
of this phenomenon we discuss it in
comparison to the labor system of
sharecropping in the southern us after
the civil war we challenge those who
fund design implement and evaluate
efforts at diversity and inclusion to
see women of color not as commodities
but as agents with interest in social
and economic emancipation and autonomy
end quote about to summarize this paper
into a single sentence i'd say that this
paper uses the metaphor of sharecropping
to problematize the new labor systems
around stem education and careers as
always the show notes include a link to
the paper as well as other resources
related to this that might be of
interest to you you can find a link to
that in the app that you're listening to
this on or by visiting jared o'leary.com
and go into the podcast tab you'll
notice many other tabs in there it's
because i create a lot of content so
check out the free stuff on there
there's hundreds if not thousands of
resources related to computer science
education as well as other new things
that i'm interested in like drumming and
video games so in the introduction
here's an interesting quote from page
stim and why we invert the question and
consider who does not do stem computer
science in particular and why not end
quote a really important question to
consider so having previously taught
pre-service and graduate music educators
one of the things that was often
discussed in the class was the people
who
were in that school of music had a music
program that worked really well for them
but when we asked students to think
about how many people did you perform
with who did not pursue music as a
degree and what's that percentage and
it's usually like 95 of students did not
so one of the things that we as a field
need to really think about is not just
what worked for us but what does not
work about cs for others and why is that
the case so i love the fact that they
frame the question this way and i also
love the fact that they are
problematizing the field and the
discourse in the field because i think
it's important that even if we are
passionate about something and we agree
with it that we also think through some
of the potential harm that the thing
that we're passionate about may cause
which is why in some of the interviews
you will hear me ask questions like okay
you really like this thing but when
would you not do that thing that you
really like and if we zoom out broadly
we're basically applying that to
computer science as a whole and saying
okay well when is this problematic when
does this not work well so that way we
can think through how we might be able
to fix that now in the background
section of this paper the authors cite
some reports indicating that the
percentage of women who go into computer
science degrees is really low and it's
even lower in computer science phds less
than five percent especially if we look
at the intersections of gender and race
or ethnicity so for example less than
five percent of african-american latinx
and native american women get phds in
computer science and hold less than six
percent of jobs in cs in silicon valley
and a very interesting stat on here in
particular is quote for these women
being in the workplace does not
translate into leadership as they
comprise fewer than one percent of
executives senior officials and managers
end quote that's from page 375. now the
authors point out on the same page that
the push for computer science and stem
often does not originate from social
justice arguments it has to do with
fulfilling jobs so even though many
initiatives are trying to
increase diversity of gender and race in
the field or in specific organizations
the ultimate goal is to find employees
and the author suggests that we need to
pause and reflect on this because quote
scholars note that from the perspectives
of societal institutions and dominant
culture black and brown bodies continue
to have the status of mere commodities
end quote from page 375. on the next
page 376 here's another quote quote if
efforts to increase diversity and
technology can be justified only by
appeal to economic growth then these
attempts assume that so-called diverse
bodies merely provide pepper for the
workforce pipeline to this end the
presence of the black and brown female
body benefits those especially white men
who already have capital and power in
computing computing education programs
and initiatives targeting girls or women
of color can be and often are designed
and implemented for the ultimate
interest of those already with wealth
and power such programs enable a labor
system for computing that poises women
of color as commodities used to enrich
others end quote now to make their point
they use sharecropping as a metaphor now
they point out that they do not think
that the current labor system is exactly
like sharecropping what they are saying
however is that there are similar
features that we should probably talk
about and they use sharecropping to
highlight some of the features so the
next main section is on sharecropping
and efforts for diversity and computing
so here's a quote from page 376 quote
sharecropping is a labor system in which
a landowner allows tenants to live on
and use the land to raise crops often
alongside the land owner in exchange for
a share of the crop yield end quote now
after this they highlight three specific
things related to sharecropping that
resemble some of the things going on in
stem and cs education efforts this has
to do with semblance of desirability
constraints due to unquenchable debt and
differential effects alright so the
first one semblance of desirability so
the authors posit that sharecropping
seemed desirable it seemed like a way of
future success compared to what was
going on with being a slave however
quote black sharecroppers soon found
themselves caught in a labor system that
largely forestalled the possibility of
economic autonomy buried them in debt
tied families to geographic regions and
limited their opportunities being able
to work the land did not provide them or
their families the social mobility they
imagined possible from a new labor
system end quote from page 377. so if
you think about the discourse in cs
education it's often positioned as how
many jobs are available and how much you
can make in those kind of jobs now
typically to get into one of those jobs
you need to get some kind of training
whether that be through a two or four
year degree or some kind of a boot camp
now having known some people who went
into those boot camps or we've gotten
degrees in computer science these are
often expensive so if we relate it to
what was just mentioned with the
semblance of desirability it seems like
this is a desirable thing however if we
think about the sunk cost fallacy that
can come with the amount of time energy
money effort etc that would go into
getting a position in a cs or in an
organization where you are doing cs it
might end up resembling the desirability
that comes with sharecropping the next
section is going to talk about the debt
that relates to this and how it might be
problematic but before i talk about that
i want to mention one another
interesting thing on page 377 so
kimberly scott the first author on this
particular paper organized a compy girl
program which i'll talk about more in an
upcoming interview with kimberly but she
has a book out and i do recommend
reading it it's a very interesting read
i was fortunate enough to get like an
advanced copy of it before so i could
prepare for the interview and i'll
include a link to where you can find the
book in the show notes but here's an
interesting quote from page 377 quote
former compu girl students have
expressed shame at deciding not to
pursue technical careers while those who
did enter those careers have noted
disappointment that the organizations in
which they work exacerbate extant race
and class-based social hierarchies end
quote so yeah you might get a
entry-level position in cs at some of
these organizations but there still
might be some race class or even gender
hierarchies that will present themselves
once you actually get into some of the
organizations that you might end up
working with in cs but going back to
what i mentioned with the debt the next
section on here is on constraints due to
unquenchable debt so the authors
mentioned that the way that
sharecroppers worked is that quote at
the end of growing seasons sharecroppers
regularly found themselves in violations
of terms having allegedly produced too
little yield in debt to the land owner
and tied to the land for another season
to pay off the debt now how this relates
to cs in cs education is student debt so
whether you're going into the boot camps
or degree programs there's often a lot
of debt associated with it now they try
and promote it with high paying salaries
or even having companies who'd be like
hey we'll pay for your loans if you work
for our organization for x number of
years and this might sound great but it
kind of ties you to the land just like
in share cropping now the third area in
this particular paper is on differential
effects so this has to do with how quote
freed women who became or were married
to sharecroppers experience fewer social
gains compared to their male
counterparts end quote and quote freed
women in the sharecropping system were
subjects to gender and racial
discrimination were often viewed
primarily in terms of their roles as
mothers and face sexual harassment and
abuse from landowners when they could
freed women in these situations fled to
preserve their lives and well-being end
quote both of those quotes are from page
field at large in terms of women of
color facing both gender and racial
discrimination and especially in the
tech industry if you have kids and take
time off or need to you know be with
their family then that was frowned upon
because some of these organizations have
a tendency to only focus on your output
or if we were to use farming terminology
your yield now again the authors are not
saying that this is a form of
sharecropping what they're saying is hey
there are some features of sharecropping
that relate to csn stem at large so
here's a final quote and this quote is
from page 379. it's a paragraph and read
the whole thing because it's really
important
we urge those who develop implement fund
or evaluate efforts about diversity and
inclusion in computing and stem to
consider more than just the skills they
impart they should also examine the
labor systems into which those with the
newly minted capacities will enter this
requires discussion and articulation of
concrete and meaningful long-term goals
and of how inclusion efforts and
education programs legitimately
contribute to them closer collaborations
with historians and sociologists
especially those who focus on legal
political and economic institutions are
in order these scholars can identify
past social systems that fostered
oppressive hierarchies based on gender
and race how those systems evolved in
the current ones and similarities
between past and current systems with
better knowledge about the social
systems in which they intend to
intervene those who design and implement
inclusion efforts can better identify
strategies by which people and
especially women of color can emancipate
themselves from systems of oppression
they can also better distinguish those
inclusion efforts that truly aim at
equity from those who use language of
diversity and inclusion merely to
publicly grandstand while otherwise
enabling oppression granted it is an
open project to articulate principles by
which to design digital inclusion
programs nevertheless all programs and
initiatives should explicitly treat
women of color as individuals with
dignity and respect who can do far more
than feed the other in quote so many
snaps to that particular quote
especially the sentence on people who
you use the language of diversity and
inclusion to grandstand alright so at
the end of these unpacking scholarship
episodes i like to share some lingering
thoughts and questions and whatnot so
one question that you might have for me
is why did i share this particular
publication again i think it's really
important for people who are really
invested or interested in something to
problematize it it's okay for us to love
computer science and computer science
education while also understanding there
are problems and actively working to
resolve them for example
i love drumline i love performing in it
i love teaching it it was amazing but
some of the instructional practices that
i experienced and unfortunately some of
the ones that i used early on when i was
modeling what i was taught were highly
problematic it's okay to love an
activity and realize the problems that
are in it and try and improve it so once
i realized the problems when i was
teaching drumline i immediately worked
towards trying to fix my own teaching
and then coaching others on how to not
teach in problematic ways so one of the
things that i really recommend that we
as a discipline or a career field of
study or how we want to think of this
that we think through is think through
whose interests are being served by the
push for cs education in the way that we
communicate with students and parents
and community members are we only
talking about the benefits in relation
to industry if so what industry are we
tending to promote and is that really
kind of the industry that we want our
kids to go work in if it is great if
there's some hesitation in that
particular thought or response
maybe we need to talk about that more
and in particular we need to think of
what are the potential negative impacts
of cs education if those interests are
not questioned for example one of the
quotes on the first page of this
was talking about how one percent of
women of color represent leadership
positions in organizations that are
primarily comprised of white men so we
really should consider when might this
kind of push for diversity be a new form
of sharecropping when are people or
identities or intersections of
identities just a commodity in the eyes
of industry or the field i'm hoping it's
unintentionally positioned that way but
even if it's just unintentional we still
got to talk about it and still got to
work through it which is why i wanted to
highlight this paper it's got some
excellent points to consider and i hope
it sparks a conversation with you and
colleagues and friends in the field if
you enjoy this paper consider sharing it
consider talking about it on social
media or share this podcast and make
sure to check out the other podcasts on
my website jaredaler.com there's well
over 100 episodes right now with a range
of really awesome people talking about
cool things that they do in relation to
computer science education and some solo
episodes like this where unpack some
publications that i think would be
beneficial for the field to discuss some
more or learn more about i hope you
enjoyed this short episode on this short
paper stay tuned next week for another
episode and until then i hope you're
staying safe and are having a wonderful
week
Article
Scott, K. A. & Elliott, S. (2020). STEM Diversity and Inclusion Efforts for Women of Color: A Critique of the New Labor System. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, 11(3), 374-382.
Abstract
“There are sustained international efforts to increase the number and percentage of people of color who pursue STEM education and careers. These initiatives are widely justified as means to provide human capital for technology companies. Particularly for women of color (African American, Native American, Latinx) in the US, far too many digital inclusion endeavors entrench women of color, sometimes unwittingly, in a labor system that treats them merely as commodities. As a result, women of color either avoid lives in computing or leave them. To display and critique some of the aspects of this phenomenon, we discuss it in comparison to the labor system of sharecropping in the southern US after the Civil War. We challenge those who fund, design, implement, and evaluate efforts at diversity and inclusion to see women of color not as commodities, but as agents with interests in social and economic emancipation and autonomy.”
Author Keywords
Computer science, education, STEM education, equity, gender, race, coding, sharecropping
My One Sentence Summary
This paper uses the metaphor of sharecropping to problematize the new labor system around STEM education and careers.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
Whose interests are being served by the push for CS education?
What are the potential negative impacts of CS education if those interests are unquestioned?
If less than 1% of women of color represent leadership positions in organizations primarily comprised of white men, when might the push for diversity be a new form of sharecropping?
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