Dee Michell

Gender Gap in Academia: Perceptions of Female Computer Science Academics

Despite increased attention from Universities and Industry, the low representation of female students in Computer Science undergraduate degrees remains a major issue. Recognising this issue, leading tech companies have established strong and committed diversity initiatives but have only reached up to 17\% female representation in their tech departments. The causes of the reduced attraction and retention of female students are varied and have been widely studied, advancing the understanding of why female students do not take up or leave Computer Science. However, few analyses look at the perceptions of the females that have stayed in the field. In this paper, we explore the viewpoints of female academics and postgraduate students in Computer Science with various undergraduate backgrounds and pathways into academia. Our analysis of their interviews shows the influence of family, exposure, culture, sexism and gendered thought on their perceptions of the field, and of themselves and their peers. We identify that perceptions of identity conflict and a lack of belonging to the discipline persist even for these high-performing professionals.

Feminist memory work in action: Method and practicalities

This is a report on how (pro)feminist social workers might use the qualitative research methodology, memory work. The first section acknowledges the pioneering work of Frigga Haug in the conception and use of memory work and considers the underlying assumptions of the methodology and prescribed uses of the method. In the second section, we use a recent memory-work project conducted with women social science students/graduates, who come from low-socio-economic backgrounds, to illustrate memory-work processes in action. Here, we emphasise the potential benefits of using the method, which include its ability to inspire trust and solidarity in a group setting and connect the personal with the political.

Learners, learning, learned: class, higher education, and autobiographical essays from working-class academics

In this article, we argue that the expectations, experience, and identities of academics may be just as crucial to improving the participation of students from low socio-economic status (SES) as higher education policies, admissions and marketing activities, but are routinely ignored. In particular, we observe that highly relevant, well-informed, and readily accessible accounts offered by academics from working-class backgrounds are not credited with the attention they deserve. This gap, or silence, signals a complex and poorly-understood relationship between education, knowledge and class. We assert that without addressing and better understanding this relationship, the situation is unlikely to improve, and the enrolment share of low SES students will remain shamefully low.

Broadening participation not border protection: how universities can support women in computer science

ABSTRACT Computer science, like technology in general, is seen as a masculine field and the under-representation of women an intransigent problem. In this paper, we argue that the cultural belief in Australia that computer science is a domain for men results in many girls and women being chased away from that field as part of a border protection campaign by some males – secondary school teachers, boys and men playing games online and young men on campus at university. We draw on American feminist philosopher, Iris Marion Young’s analysis of the ‘five faces’ of oppression to suggest strategies whereby Australian universities could support women in computer science and educate men about respectful behaviour and gender equity.

I Want to Be Someone, I Want to Make a Difference: Young Care Leavers Preparing for the Future in South Australia

Improved education enhances life chances. Yet very few of those who have been in the care of the State proceed to higher education (HE). In Australia, care leavers are a subset of three demographics noted by the Bradley Review (2008) as continuing to be under-represented in HE: those from low socio-economic status (SES), rural, and Indigenous students. However, little is known specifically about care leavers in HE.

Planting a seed: encouraging service users towards educational goals

Some interventions by social workers, teachers and parents take time to develop but can produce, in the longer term, powerful and unexpectedly positive results. We were reminded of this in 2013, when we undertook a small qualitative study where we used feminist memory work to explore the experiences of 11 women from low socio-economic backgrounds studying social sciences at an Australian university. Of the eleven participants, seven were from social work. When asked to remember their journey into tertiary education, the women revealed memorable encounters with social workers, teachers and parents, the impact of which had lasted well into the future. We use the gardening metaphor of ‘planting a seed’ to refer to interventions that may not blossom in the short term but can bear fruit months or years later. Yet, we also note that ‘seeds of doubt’ can be planted too. We conclude by suggesting that planting seeds of possibility is a worthy but potentially overlooked professional activity. Yet, since ours is a small study, further research is warranted to explore the influence of social workers who plant seeds of possibility and whose actions help to recruit and retain socially disadvantaged students in higher education.

Working-Class Intellectuals (Oxy) moronic Professors and Educational Equality (A Response to Ken Oldfield, A&S, 41, 1016-1038)

Ten years ago, when I was a graduate student in Politics at one of Australia’s most prestigious universities, I was invited to join a reading group. The group was composed of faculty and graduate students from a range of disciplines, with a common interest in gender and feminism. The group met at members’ homes for pizza, wine, and discussion. I was pleased to join, and looked forward to attending my first meeting. Shortly after arriving at that first session, and before the “real” discussion started, one group member announced, in a gossipy, lighthearted tone, that she was apparently, “officially,” White Trash. In response to other members’ promptings, she explained that she had just come across a new definition of the term. To be classed White Trash, she said, you had to have a relative in jail. And, she went on, because her sister’s husband’s cousin’s son was doing time for theft, or possession, (or something), she fit the bill. The murmurs of amusement that followed were whimsically ironic—to them, this was a quaint, slightly silly exercise in categorization. If I’d had the nerve, I would have asked “If you’re White Trash, what does that make me? My dad’s doing 8 years.” Of course I said nothing. Anything I might say would be wrong: I would dampen the mood; expose the chip on my shoulder; I would be “whining”; I would embarrass the woman who had spoken (who may well have been

Solidarity and support: feminist memory work focus groups with working-class women studying social science degrees in Australia

Abstract This paper reports on our use of a two-phased, feminist memory work in a project conducted with 11 women, social science students at an Australian university. We begin by describing government-led attempts to widen participation in Australian universities because 10 of the 11 women who participated in our project were from non-traditional backgrounds. We discuss qualitative group research, identifying some of the benefits and limitations of focus groups, before differentiating them from feminist memory work and analysing key findings. Using excerpts from participants’ written stories and oral discussions, we analyse some of the obstacles the women faced trying to complete their studies. Our attention then turns to methodological concerns where we examine memory work as a feminist inquiry method. As second-wave feminists understood several decades ago through their use of consciousness-raising groups, we describe how we derived many benefits from using feminist memory work. The method invites deep reflection on the intersections between the personal and political and can be productive of insights about how people feel, not just think, about their experiences. A sense of solidarity can stem from this awareness amongst participants who have a chance to workshop and thus reinterpret their own stories and those of others, which can mean a growth in self-confidence and a reduction in self-blame.

Foster care, stigma and the sturdy, unkillable children of the very poor

Foster care has been provided for thousands of vulnerable Australian children from the early nineteenth century. Despite the prevalence of this system of care as the preferred means of providing out-of-home care across the country from the late nineteenth century, very few people who lived in foster care as children have written about their experiences, a total of 23 in all. Although a small sample, these few stories tell a larger one of the complexities of lived experience of foster care: for some it was entirely positive, for others it was wholly negative and for most it was somewhere between those two extremes. What I show in this paper is that what many of the stories have in common, no matter where they sit on that continuum, is the painful acquaintance with social stigma at an early age.

Towards a socio-ecological framework to address gender inequity in computer science

Abstract In Australia the under-representation of women in computer science reflects the under-representation of women at the highest levels of government and business. In this paper we argue, therefore, that change is going to require a cohesive multi-level analysis and intervention approach. To illustrate how such an approach might look, we draw on social psychologist Uri Bronfenbrenners socio-ecological systems theory to analyse a national survey with secondary school computer science teachers we conducted in 2017. By employing this analysis we can see that student interest and engagement in computer science is impacted by their teachers, peers and parents (microsystem) who sit within a wider community, educational and industry network (mesosystem) which in turn is influenced by their access to relevant human and physical infrastructure (and the policies that shape it) in their school and social environments (exosystem) and by the broader values and rhetoric around gender and Digital Technologies in the wider Australian community (macrosystem).