"I Am My Sister's Keeper": Sister Circles and Persistence Among Black/Indigenous Females In Postsecondary Computer Science (Poster 47)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Friday 1:30 p.m.
  In Poster Session: Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in Higher Education

Abstract

There is a purported shortage of employable labor in the tech workforce, yet Black, Indigenous, Women of Color (BIWOC) in urban centers struggle to find and maintain roles in technology fields. Statistics show the dismally low number of Black women in technology jobs hovers at approximately 3% of the total computing workforce (Urwin, 2023). This paper details a study conducted at an urban, HSI & MSI designated college in the northeast, where the “Sister Circle Methodology, rooted in Black Feminist Thought, was implemented with BIWOC in undergraduate Computer Science programs. The study explored how Community Culture Wealth can be cultivated in these counter spaces to support BIWOC to persist to and through their programs to roles in high-tech.

Author

• Constance Barnes, City University of New York