Inclusão de mulheres na computação: um estudo de caso de iniciativas em São Carlos

Abstract

Despite the history of relevant participation of women in the development of computing, their presence in this market has declined. Other areas related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) have registered a distinct movement. In these, although women face challenges similar to those faced by those who are inserted in the computing market, there is a growth in their participation. Initiatives aimed at increasing female participation and diversifying the profile of students, professionals and people interested in computing are emerging, but in-depth studies on their motivations and how these initiatives are organized are still scarce. Some guiding questions for this research are: where does the motivation to participate in these initiatives come from? How do these initiatives propose to combat the disparity in women's participation in technology areas? Who is part of these initiatives? What have they achieved? How are they organized? Do they follow a feminist agenda? For this work, a comparative case study was implemented using an exploratory and descriptive methodology, with primary data collection via field research based on observation, questionnaires (survey) and semi-structured online interviews conducted by e-mail; secondary data were collected from documentary data sources through a mixed qualitative and quantitative research approach. With the aim of analyzing groups that work in networks for the inclusion of women and girls in computing in the city of São Carlos, this work seeks to understand their organizational structures, the motivations behind their existence, the impacts they generate, the challenges they face, the profile of their participants, whether or not they follow a feminist agenda and how they fit into the global agenda of diversity initiatives. The theoretical framework was constructed from the contributions of Science and Technology (S&T) gender studies in dialogue with the Social Studies of Science and Technology. The results of this work include the characterization of the groups PyLadies São Carlos and Grupo de Alunas de Ciências Exatas (GRACE) from the Institute of Mathematics and Computing Sciences (ICMC) of the University of São Paulo (USP) and the profile of their founders and participants, as well as the identification of factors that influenced the trajectories of such participants in view of the potentialities and limitations of said groups. It can be said that the motivations for participation are quite varied, the action takes place through events, posts on social media, among others, the organization of the groups differs in the sense of having or not a centrality of decisions. Most of the people that participates in the researched initiatives are young women, from the Southeast region, that are white and dont have any disabilities, which demonstrates that people from other races or outside that age group are underrepresented, in addition to that there is low male participation and little national representation. The impact achieved ranges from the positive experience of participating in the groups to the education of several girls and women. And the challenges found include the difficulty of following up activities to situations linked to segregation in spaces, surrounding the lack of incentive and representativeness since childhood, discrimination and violence. Faced with a global agenda of diversity initiatives in Technology, the groups are active agents of change, carrying with them the interests and expectations of institutions, but also the motivation of several people concerned with a transformation of society.