Not Just Black and Not Just a Woman: Black Women Belonging in Computing

A sense of belonging is key to pursuing and persisting in computing. It is also one of the reasons for the low representation of women and Black people in computing. Research has attempted to understand why these underrepresented groups feel like they do not belong in computing. These initiatives tend to analyze race and gender separately as if people experience these aspects of identity separately. For Black women who are seeking to belong in computing, these sorts of analyses are problematic. Black women are not just “women plus color, or Black plus gender” [1]. Intersections of their race and gender yield unique experiences for them. Thus, analyses that only focus on women’s experiences or Blacks’ experiences leaves out the many nuances that result from one being both a woman and Black. This paper is an exploration of “what it means to belong” in computing. By analyzing Black womens multiple identities through an intersectional lens, we show that most research for Black people or women is not inclusive of Black womens unique perspectives. We make visible a gap in computing education research that does not address intersectionality.

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