Career Space E-zine

For the past few years UBC grad student Kaela Jubas and her Vancouver colleague Dr.Shauna Butterwick have been involved in a research project to find out about the alternative pathways’s that women use in the IT sector as part of their career development. This sector is part of the Work and Lifelong Learning (WALL) research network which is funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Last year I recieved an invite from the Digital Eve mailing list to be a participant in this study. As someone who is interested in IT and in education I volunteered for the interview. Kaela Jubas interviewed me asking me questions that ranged from what kinds of training I had received to what support I had received in the workplace.

Here are some of the more interesting key points presented in their final analysis:

• For many women their entry into the IT was serendipitous.
• Informal learning included learning from co-workers, personal research, mentors, colleagues, resource texts and workshops.
• Intution played a role in problem solving skills.
• As well as being constant learners they were also teaching or coaching what they learned to co-workers and colleagues.
• Workers in unionized workplaces received employer support in their ongoing knowledge development.

One aspect of the study that I found interesting was that some of the participants found subtle gender discrimination at the workplace where “men’s knowledge of IT was assumed while women’s IT skills were tested or questioned.” (from update #5). I think this is the case in the absence of a Computer Science degree. With having a degree in this area an assumption can be made that all graduates have completed the same kind of training/knowledge base. For alternative pathways people are less sure of this. It’s not uncommon for people to perceive that men get into computers as a hobby/interest and pursue this by tinkering around with programs and games. For women, (I know I am this way) the assumption is that we tend to view computers as not as this big toy but as a useful tool to use to extend and help our work and interests. While this is a generalization to different approaches (which of course varies from person to person)  the resulting knowledge base about computers is still similar therefore the gender discrimination shouldn’t be happening. The body of work and educational paths in this area should speak for itself.

The study results have been presented at a variety of conferences and interest groups such as the Wired Woman Society (Vancouver Chapter). A paper published with the Adult Education Research Conference 2006 is available for viewing.

To take a look at past updates please visit the Women’s Alternative & Informal Learning Pathways ubc website.