Increasing Women and Underrepresented Minorities in Computing: The Landscape and What You Can Do

Hidden Costs: COVID-19’s Disproportionate Impact on Underrepresented Groups in Online Computing Education

“…While our sample is highly representative of the study population (i.e., all U.S. citizens enrolled in the learning program), it is not representative of the larger American workforce and therefore has limited generalizability. Again, this may reflect historical and cultural idiosyncrasies about occupation-specific employment trends in the U.S. (Varma, 2006;Whitney & Taylor, 2018). While underrepresentation of women in computing and other related fields is certainly not limited to the U.S.…”

“…From a career perspective, the accumulation over time of small group differences in learning disruptions may lead to exacerbation of inequities currently observed in IT and related fields (e.g., representation; Whitney & Taylor, 2018; access to future learning and/or advancement opportunities, Armstrong et al, 2018;Roldan et al, 2004). Future research should continue to consider how global disruptions alter working adults' pursuit and strategic management of professional education and training in computing and related industries as an important part of career development, and how differences in access to support or other psychosocial resources could mitigate these effects.…”

“…A summary of these model comparison tests, along with alternative fit indices for each model (Log Likelihood, AIC, CAIC, BIC) are presented in Table8.In the final model, significant predictors of membership in the more severely affected profile include demographic, contextual, and psychosocial variables. In accord with historical underrepresentation of Black and Hispanic individuals in computer science and related fields(Varma, 2006;Whitney & Taylor, 2018), we recoded ethnicity from a six-category variable to a binary variable (Black/Hispanic, Not Black/Hispanic). Participants who were Black or Hispanic (b = 0.556, z = 2.620, p < 0.01) and older (b = 0.031, z = 3.737, p < 0.001) were more likely to be fall within the severely affected profile by a factor of 1.743 and of 1.031 (per year) respectively.…”

CS-JEDI: Required DEI Education, by CS PhD Students, for CS PhD Students

“…At all levels, the field of CS persistently under-represents many groups including women, black and indigenous people of color, queer people, and disabled people [4,16,28,34,41]. Underlying this lack of representation are more complex issues -ranging from field-specific cultural issues to social issues like systemic racism, sexism, and ableism -that make it difficult, unwelcome, and sometimes even unsafe for people outside our field's dominant social groups to pursue a career in CS [11,12,14,15,21,33,36,37]. On top of these barriers, PhD students face high rates of mental health issues due to academia's "dark patterns" [14], along with "stress about productivity and self-doubt,...feeling devalued, [issues with] advisor relationships,... difficulties with work-life balance, and feelings of isolation and loneliness" [29].…”

Educational strategies to foster diversity and inclusion in machine intelligence

“…Specifically, women and minority groups, including African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and people with disabilities are underrepresented. 2 Although these groups constitute over half of the population, of the undergraduate computer science degrees awarded at nonprofit institutions, only 20% are to women, 8.3 % to African Americans, 11% to Hispanics, and 0.4% to Native Americans, and within industry, only 26% of entry-level technical positions are women, 8.3% African Americans, and 6.3% Hispanics. 3,4…”