Studying Computer Science

My decision to study computer science education was deeply personal, given that I majored in computer science as an undergraduate student. My turn to anthropology reflects my sense that I did not comfortably fit the goals, interests, and future possibilities offered by the Computer Science discipline. I was a successful student and employee, participating in an extensive co-op program where I worked at several tech-related jobs. Yet, I struggled with the ways doing computer science seemed to demand becoming intimately and thoroughly intertwined with and dedicated to computers, both in terms of time and engagement (Downey 1998; Turkle 2005). In addition, at the time the career opportunities seemed to me to be technical, boring, and constrained within limited frameworks. I return to these issues throughout this dissertation.

But, what initially sparked my desire to study computer science ethnographically was my participation in the “Task Force for Gender Equality in Computer Science” as an upper-year undergraduate student. The taskforce was created to help promote and resolve issues of gender balance in the computer science department at the University of

Waterloo. The report we produced was based on literature reviews, task force members’ experiences, and a survey administered to undergraduate students (Task Force on Gender Equality at UW-CS 2007). The survey, while meant to provide an understanding of students’ perspectives on studying computer science in relation to gender, was primarily based on multiple choice questions. The results could thus be statistically analyzed, but the possibilities for students to convey their experiences were limited to the tiny boxes and numerical measurements of their satisfaction with various facets of the discipline and

department. Faculty and student members of the taskforce also had many other commitments, limiting their ability to pursue questions of gender in depth.

From my discussions with fellow students there seemed to be much more to explore about students’ struggles, frustrations, joys, and challenges. I also had my own experiences in relation to gender: a classmate saying I only got hired for a co-op position because I was a girl, employers ogling women co-op students, and the sheer disparity between the number of women and men in my program, to name a few. Around the same time, I had also started taking undergraduate courses in anthropology and knew that a holistic and qualitative perspective would yield better, or at least different, insights.

I set this idea aside to pursue an MA in anthropology studying the meanings and practices around traditional Irish and Newfoundland music, another topic of interest to me. There are numerous reasons that I chose to pursue postgraduate studies in

anthropology rather than a career (academic or industry-based) in computer science. These include some of the issues mentioned above in terms of the scope and framing of the discipline and disparity and discrimination relating to gender, as well as having multiple interests that seemed better accommodated by anthropology. The reasons I give change based on the context, but as I discuss in Chapter 7, I inevitably am counted as one of (and become representative of) the many other women who choose to leave computer science and related disciplines – part of the leaky or “shrinking” pipeline (Camp 1997). For my PhD I thus decided to return to questioning this relationship between gender and computer science, but from an anthropological perspective.

2.1.1 Proposed Research

I titled my proposed research topic for my dissertation “Gendering citizens and subjects: The making of computer scientists in Singapore.” The decision to study computer science in Singapore emerged out of my literature review and a series of decisions based on feasibility of access, language usage, and the presence of an

established and specialized department focused on computer science. I wanted to take an international perspective since the large majority of social science research on computer science, and particularly gender and computer science, centres on so-called Western countries (Abbate 2012; Acker and Oatley 1993; Coleman 2013; Downey 1998; Durndell 1991; Kirkup et al. 2010; Margolis and Fisher 2002; Misa 2010; Robertson et al. 2001; Turkle 1988, 2005). In trying to answer the question of “why so few women?,”

explanations have centred on the masculine associations with the field, women’s lack of interests and abilities, and gendered divisions of labour by sub-discipline (e.g. Hill, Corbett, and St. Rose 2010). However, these projects focusing on “women in” computer science and related STEM fields have done little to correct disparities in academic enrollment, graduation, and pursuit of computing professions (Faulkner 2000, 87–88). In some cases, disparities have even increased (Ashcraft and Blithe 2010).

The few historical articles on gender and computer science in Singapore that I found suggested that in the 1980s the number of men and women in computer science in the city-state was approximately equal, although the relative number of women has since declined (Kheng 1989, 1990). I was determined to take a more performative approach to gender than used in many studies on women in computer science. However, the historical numerical equality of men and women and then growing disparity pointed towards

changing valuations of gender in Singapore. Additionally, since the 1980s, the

Singaporean government has made a concerted effort to promote and use IT, particularly software development, to develop the national economy, which I discuss in Chapter 6. The government has also instituted many programs that promote marriage and

procreation among (some of) its citizens. The combination of technological development and government policies on gender, marriage, and sexuality, I thought, would provide easy insight into the relationship between gendering and computing in Singapore, although I ultimately found that eliciting discussion on these topics was not so straightforward.

I had never been to Singapore and so in developing my project I relied heavily on what I read in the literature, which was extensive but often focused on government policy and practice.11 _{There were few options for arranging long-term stay in Singapore in terms} of visas and immigration; I could stay only 30 days with a possible limited extension as a tourist. Thanks to the help of a professor from Singapore who I met at the American Anthropological Association meetings, however, I was able to complete the paperwork for a student visa and become a “non-graduating research student” at Temasek

University, an amorphous category in practice, it turned out, as much as in name. I also emailed the head of the computer science department ahead of time and received the response that participation in my research was at the discretion of professors and students. With my ethics application approved, permission from the computer science

department to begin research, and temporary accommodation at a tourist hostel until I arranged something more permanent, I flew to Singapore.

My proposed research centred on three broad questions, entailing three overlapping levels of inquiry:

(1) What are the technical and social learning experiences of students, particularly in relation to gender?

(2) In what ways do university and computing curricula (hidden and overt) seek to shape student subjectivities?

(3) How and to what extent are various nationalistic and globalizing projects of the Singapore state implicated in these curricula and in students’ experiences? I discuss in the next section the specific methods that I used to address these questions, which generally encompass the scope of my findings in the field. At the same time, my research certainly took unexpected (although often not surprising) shapes and directions. For example, while I had known from the literature that Singapore worked to attract foreign expertise, known as “foreign talents,” I found interesting tensions around the competition that these foreign talents produced in computer science, and Singapore more generally, as well as with the aspirations and desires of many students to leave Singapore to work in such places as Silicon Valley despite the government’s ongoing and

significant promotion of the local tech industry and “ecosystem.” I discuss these issues in Chapters 6 and 8. At the same time, I also discuss below how I came to realize many insights and reflections about my research only after leaving Singapore and spending time going over the various materials I collected.