Prior research has demonstrated that women and racial minority undergraduate students experience stereotype threat in unwelcoming STEM classrooms in predominantly White institutions. Drawing from focus group and journal entry data with Latinx and African American undergraduate students (
This content will become publicly available on March 7, 2025
The Diversity-Hire Narrative in CS: Sources, Impacts, and Responses
Background : Affirmative action programs (AAPs) aim to increase the representation of people from historically underrepresented groups (HUGs) in the workforce, but can unintentionally signal that a person from a HUG was selected for their identity rather than their merit. We call this signal the diversity-hire narrative. Prior work has found that women hear the diversity-hire narrative during their computer science (CS) internships, but women and non-binary students' experiences surrounding the narrative are important to understand and have not been thoroughly explored.
Objectives: We seek to understand the (1) sources and (2) impacts of this narrative, as well as (3) how students respond to it.
Methods: We conducted and qualitatively analyzed 23 semi-structured interviews with undergraduate CS students in the gender minority (i.e., students who identify as women or non-binary).
Results : Participants reported hearing the diversity-hire narrative from family and peers. They reported feeling self-doubt and a double standard where their success was not attributed to their intelligence, but their peers' success was. Participants responded to the diversity-hire narrative by (1) ignoring it, (2) attempting to prove themselves, (3) stating that their peers are jealous, (4) explaining that AAPs address inequity, and (5) explaining that everyone is held to a high standard.
Implications: These results expand our understanding of the experiences that likely impact undergraduate CS students in the gender minority. This is important for broadening participation in computing because results indicate that students in the gender minority often encounter the diversity-hire narrative, which deprives them of recognition by invalidating their hard work.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2113955
- PAR ID:
- 10503904
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400704239
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1049 to 1055
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- broadening participation in computing diversity affirmative action
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland OR USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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