A Feminist Ethics of Care Within Counterspaces: Supporting Inclusion in Postsecondary ICT Education

Abstract

There is a dichotomy in computing education. The information communication technology (ICT) field, which includes all areas that pertain to technology, computing, or computational reasoning (e.g., computer science, computer engineering, and machine learning), needs diversity to thrive. Yet, the undergraduate programs that support the field have a difficult time attracting and retaining that diversity <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref> . In undergraduate education, ICT is one of the most exclusionary of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) cultures <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[2]</xref> for women. Exclusion challenges a woman’s sense of belonging <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[3]</xref> and identity—her sense of “personal relevance, ownership, and integration into the sense of self” <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[4, p. 208]</xref> . Significantly, women’s intersectional identities (e.g., the intersection of race, gender, and disability) frame their experiences with oppression, causing problematic experiences in ICT education to compound and hurt computing identity <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[5]</xref> .