New Enactments of Mentoring and Activism: U.S. Women of Color in Computing Education and Careers

In this paper we present themes from our National Science Foundation-funded projects, Beyond the Double Bind: Women of Color in STEM and Computing Beyond the Double Bind: Women of Color in Computing Education and Careers. The findings come from 14 interviews and 85 extant texts about 40 women of color. Our study contributes an analysis of how the intersection of gender and race affects career and education experiences in computing. We ask, What strategies work to enable U.S. women of color to achieve higher levels of advancement in computing education and careers? The findings bring to light new, emergent enactments of support, mentoring, and activism. This research will increase knowledge about success strategies to retain U.S. women of color, a population widely considered an untapped source of talent to fill the country’s and the world’s scientific workforce needs. The research may also provide other countries with new strategies to explore to retain and promote their underrepresented groups in computing.