Communities of Exclusion: Women StudentExperiences in Information Technology Classrooms

Abstract

Despite important enrollment gains in science and engineering majors, women students are still conspicuously underrepresented in information technology (IT) programs. Previous research has reported that women students are isolated and less confident in their IT courses and, ultimately, become discouraged by competitive classroom environments. In this article, I extend previous research on the classroom experiences of women IT students through a series of ethnographic observations aimed at understanding classroom discourses. Rather than focusing on women students’ challenges, I focus on classroom spaces, interactions, and community characteristics. I argue that the four classroom contexts included in this study can be described in terms of two discourses: discourses of power and discourses of disengagement-discourse patterns the women students in this study have limited access to and utility with. These understandings can be beneficial to faculty and student affairs professionals as they seek to improve classroom communities for all students.