Breaking Barriers: Investigating the Sense of Belonging Among Women and Non-Binary Students in Software Engineering

TL;DR

This study investigates the sense of belonging among women and non-binary students in software engineering education, revealing persistent barriers like tokenism and stereotype threat, but also highlighting positive influences such as role models and encouragement.

Contribution

It provides new insights into gender perceptions and barriers in university-level software engineering education through surveys and interviews.

Findings

Gender perceptions differ, with men seen as technically skilled and women as managerial.

Barriers like tokenism and stereotype threat persist among students.

Role models and encouragement positively impact students' sense of belonging.

Abstract

Women in computing were among the first programmers in the early 20th century and were substantial contributors to the industry. Today, men dominate the software engineering industry. Research and data show that women are far less likely to pursue a career in this industry, and those that do are less likely than men to stay in it. Reasons for women and other underrepresented minorities to leave the industry are a lack of opportunities for growth and advancement, unfair treatment and workplace culture. This research explores how the potential to cultivate or uphold an industry unfavourable to women and non-binary individuals manifests in software engineering education at the university level. For this purpose, the study includes surveys and interviews. We use gender name perception as a survey instrument, and the results show small differences in perceptions of software engineering students based on their gender. Particularly, the survey respondents anchor the values of the male software engineer (Hans) to a variety of technical and non-technical skills, while the same description for a female software engineer (Hanna) is anchored mainly by her managerial skills. With interviews with women and non-binary students, we gain insight on the main barriers to their sense of ambient belonging. The collected data shows that some known barriers from the literature such as tokenism, and stereotype threat, do still exist. However, we find positive factors such as role models and encouragement that strengthen the sense of belonging among these students.