Re(producing) Gender Difference: A Cultural Accounting of Professional Skills Among Latinx Computer Science Majors

• In Event: Institutional Culture for Women in STEM

Abstract

Industry-driven demand for computer scientists to graduate with multiple professional skills is impacting curriculum in computer science higher education. Professional skills involve hard or technical skills, i.e., programming and soft or social skills, i.e., communication. Thus, it is critical to understand how social skills are actually perceived in CSHE to understand if, and how diverse students beliefs reflect larger societal views that equate technical skills with men and social skills with women. Findings from this ethnographic study provide unique insights on how Latinx undergraduate CS majors reproduce wider societal and industry divisions between technical and social skills. Findings also suggest that the dichomotization of professional skills reinscribes gender difference as a defining logic in the marginalization of Latinas in CS.

Authors

• Christina Convertino, The University of Texas - El Paso

• Josey Pickett

• Viridiana Vidana, University of Texas at El Paso