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.

  • 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


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?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

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