Dr Emma Seddon, University of Glasgow

Telling women’s tech stories via LEGO and remote interviews

Academic research and grey literature on gender in STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths) often neglect cutting-edge technology fields such as data science and artificial intelligence (UNESCO, 2017). Globally, fewer women than men enrol in STEM (36.2%) and ICT (29.2%) undergraduate programmes, generally the first step in tech careers (Wajcman et al. 2020). This project was conceived mid-pandemic with an awareness of the limitations of zoom. Inspired by Brown and Collins’ (2018) successful use of LEGO, LEGO sets were sent to participants who built models representing their career journeys. Building the LEGO model enabled participants to reflect on both their experiences and how to represent them. This created an engaging research environment for the interview with participants empowered to lead the discussion by describing the model and their building process. This paper gives examples of their models and explores the key themes that emerged from the interviews, including belonging, gender imbalance in tech, ‘tech for good’ and the importance of diversity.

 

About the speaker

Dr Emma Seddon is a Research Associate on the Gendered Journeys project in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. She recently completed her PhD in Sociology and Social Research at Newcastle University, looking at professionalism and professional identity in the translation industry.

First published: 1 November 2021

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