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Reaching the End — Where are we now? Where to from
here?
September 2006
After three and a half years, our case study is now formally
complete. We investigated the learning pathways of 75, mostly
white and middle class women working in various IT occupa-tions
in the Lower Mainland and Victoria, BC and Toronto, Ontario.
The diverse occupational areas discussed in our study include
database development, project management, web development,
website design, help desk support, technical writing and secretarial
work. We also talked to a few women working in program-ming,
software engineering and archi-tecture, and network administration
— jobs most typically seen as IT work. We purposefully
recruited women who, for the most part, did not have a computing
science or engineering degree. These credentials are most
associated with work in the IT field. Our participants were
between 24 and 60 years old. One noteworthy characteristic
about these women is that most of them did not have chil-dren.
We acknowledge that many of the participants in this study
were still relatively young, and that their family status
might change in the coming years. On the other hand, the relative
lack of parenting responsibilities among participants might
offer an interesting reflection of the per-ception of the
IT field as highly de-manding in terms of workers’ time.
Listed below are some key findings of our study:
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Most of our participants had com-pleted some form of
post secon-dary education, mainly in the so-cial sciences
and the arts. They did not follow a linear career pathway
to IT jobs. Many had worked in a variety of other jobs
before shift-ing to IT; these occupational shifts were
serendipitous and un-planned. Some participants had entered
the IT field immediately following completion of their
sec-ondary or post-secondary educa-tion. Except for the
few women who had initially entered IT-related programs,
entry into the IT field was also usually unplanned.
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Once IT became their work focus, these women engaged
in a complex mix of self-directed, informal and formal
on- and off-the-job learning. Their informal learning
strategies included playing around, observing and listening
to others, and asking questions. Other im-portant sources
of learning and emotional support were mentors and supervisors,
and networks of colleagues, peers and ex-classmates. In
terms of technical resources, participants often re-lied
on manuals, help functions, online listservs or chat rooms
and, to a lesser extent, books and periodicals, in staying
up-to-date in their skills and knowledge. Fi-nally, some
participants were based in workplaces featuring “lunch-and-learns”
or other organ-ized learning opportunities; these were
strongly appreciated as a way to share information among
co-workers and build positive work-place relations.
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For most of the participants, in-tuition played a key
role in prob-lem solving at work. Intuition enabled them
to make sense of problems, with either technology, workplace
processes or other peo-ple (e.g., colleagues, clients
or suppliers).
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These women were constant learners but they were also
con-stant teachers in that they embraced a work ethic
of sharing their newly acquired knowledge and skills.
Teaching and sharing helped participants consolidate and
confirm their own knowledge, increase their self-confidence
and reputation in the workplace, and encourage a sense
of reciprocity among colleagues and peers.
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Regardless of their specific educa-tional backgrounds,
work settings and occupational niches, the vast majority
of participants had com-pleted some sort of IT-related
course or short, focussed program related to their jobs.
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Formal IT training emphasizing formulaic and abstract
problem solving did not easily transfer to the real world
of work; formal IT training grounded in real-life prob-lem-based
learning was preferred.
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While some participants’ employ-ers were proactive
in providing IT training, the majority of partici-pants
engaged in IT learning through their own initiatives,
us-ing their own resources of time and money. Not surprisingly,
workers in unionized positions or unionized workplaces
had assur-ances of employer support for their ongoing
learning. Some par-ticipants found the time for learn-ing
while at work was limited; for them, IT-related learning
“ate into” their home and leisure lives.
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The dynamic and expanding IT field demands that workers
engage in constant learning. This is some-thing that participants
both valued and, often, also found stressful. There are
financial costs in having to purchase hardware and soft-ware,
as well as training. Some participants also spoke about
hav-ing to approach their learning stra-tegically. Because
it is impossible to be an expert in all areas, spe-cialization
is an increasingly recog-nized necessity. This can create
a sense of having to predict where things are headed —
and the reali-zation that making a mistaken prediction
can have long-term costs. Again, these costs might be
reflected in the purchase of hard-ware, software and training.
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These women faced a gendered paradox: On the one hand,
em-ployers valued the women’s “soft”
communication, team work and problem solving skills, understand-ing
that workers with such skills were crucial to the development
and provision of IT services. At other times, many participants
encountered discrimination based on sexism — men’s
IT knowledge was assumed while women’s IT skills
were tested or questioned. Some participants also described
a form of “ageism” in the very youthful IT
field — skills and knowledge of older workers trying
to enter this field were also more likely to be overlooked
and ques-tioned. At times, age and gender combined in
other ways. Some participants sensed that youth worked
in favour of male col-leagues, but against them and other
young women who were more likely to be regarded as lack-ing
both professional experience and IT-related knowledge.
Learn-ing how to interpret and work with gender and age,
as well as race and culture, in the workplace and the
wider IT field has proven to be a complicated, often unspo-ken
part of the women’s work.
We have developed and shared our analysis in a variety of
conference and community presentations (including Wired Women
Vancou-ver), and journal articles. Some of these are publicly
accessible — you can find examples from the Canadian
Association for the Study of Adult Education annual conference
2006, the Centre for Work and Learning, University of Alberta
(2003), and the Adult Education Research Confer-ence 2006.
We continue to finalize some additional journal articles at
UBC, and ACTEW continues to work with its members in Ontario
and other organizations across Can-ada concerned about women’s
train-ing and employment. In this way, we hope to continue
sharing our find-ings from this study with academics, educators
and trainers and policy-makers. We encourage you to share
this information with colleagues and employers. And, as always,
if you have questions or suggestions, we invite you to contact
us. Finally, thank you again for your participation in and
contribution to this study!
Research Team
Women’s Alternative and Informal Learning Pathways
to Jobs in the Information Technology Sector is part of the
Work and
Lifelong Learning (WALL) research network, funded by the Social
Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
You can visit the WALL website (http://www1.oise.utoronto.ca/research/wall/)
for information about this network .
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