They Call Her'Miss'and Him'Professor': Lived Experiences of Women Teaching Support Staff in IT/SE Education

2026-02-04

AI Summary

This study addresses the persistent marginalization of women teaching support staff in IT and software engineering education, who often contend with insufficient recognition of their authority and gendered interpersonal dynamics. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 15 female teaching support professionals and employing an intersectional theoretical framework alongside thematic analysis, the research elucidates how these individuals negotiate, resist, and sustain their professional authority in everyday pedagogical contexts, as well as their positive and negative experiences interacting with colleagues and students. The work innovatively proposes a “Wheel of Privilege and Power” model to clarify the relationship between the degree of identity-based marginalization and the additional emotional and cognitive labor required to navigate it. Building on these insights, the study offers actionable recommendations to help higher education institutions foster more inclusive and resilient technical learning environments in the post-pandemic era.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Computer Vision: Bias, Fairness & Privacy
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web
• Security and Privacy: Privacy-enhancing technologies
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization

Abstract

Despite their critical role in shaping student learning in computing education, the contributions of women teaching-support staff (TSS) often go unrecognised and undervalued. In this experience report, we synthesise lived experiences of 15 women TSS in IT/SE higher education to illuminate how authority is earned, resisted, and maintained in everyday teaching. Participants shared both their positive and negative lived experiences associated with finding and losing voice with teaching team colleagues on the one hand, and rewarding connections and gendered friction with students on the other. We map these dynamics onto an intersectional"wheel of privilege and power"tailored to TSS roles. The farther a TSS profile sits from the wheel's center (e.g., non-native English, non-white, younger-seeming, non-permanent, early-career), the more relational, emotional, and disciplinary labour is needed to reach parity. We provide actionable insights and recommendations for creating more inclusive education environments in technology dominant fields that are particularly timely as universities worldwide grapple with post-pandemic teaching models and seek to build more inclusive and resilient academic communities.

Problem

• teaching support staff
• gender equity
• lived experiences
• intersectionality
• computing education

Innovation

• teaching support staff
• intersectionality
• gendered labor
• inclusive education
• power dynamics