Purpose – This paper aims to focus on academic library managers’ learning practices in the context of cooperative work supported by computational artefacts. Academic library managers’ everyday work is mainly cooperative. Their cooperation is supported predominantly by computational artefacts. Learning how to use the computational artefacts efficiently and effectively involves understanding the changes in everyday work that affect managers and, therefore, it requires deep understanding of their cooperative work practices.

Design/methodology/approach – Focused ethnography was conducted through participant observations, interviews and document analysis. Ten managers from a university library in Sweden participated in the research. A thematic method was used to analyse the empirical material. Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) and work-integrated learning was used as the conceptual lens.

Findings – Five learning practices were identified: collaboration, communication, coordination, decision-making processes and computational artefacts’ use. The findings show that learning is embedded in managers’cooperative work practices, which do not necessarily include sufficient training time. Furthermore, learning was intertwined with cooperating and was situational. Managers learned by reflecting together on their own experiences and through joint cooperation and information sharing while using the computational artefacts.

Originality/value – The main contribution lies in providing insights into how academic library managers learn and cooperate in their everyday work, emphasizing the role of computational artefacts, the importance of the work context and the collective nature of learning. It also highlights the need for continual workplace learning in contemporary knowledge work environments. Thus, the research generates contributions to the informatics field by extending the understanding of managers’ work-integrated learning in their everyday cooperative work practices supported by computational artefacts’ use. It also contributes to the intersection of CSCW and work-integrated learning.

In this chapter, we look carefully into the genealogy and formation of WG 9.8: Gender, Diversity, and ICT. In our inquiry, we have looked into proceedings available online and via university libraries, read yearly reports from the working group, and reached out to prior participants who have played a part in forming and consolidating the working group by way of organizing the Work and Computerization (WWC) conference. The WG 9.8 has, since its early formation in the beginning of the 1980s, been concerned about women’s experiences and conditions in relation to an automated and digitalized working life. This focus has prevailed in the lifespan of the working group and has been accompanied by other foci, such as gender and power relations. Thus, in unfolding the history of the working group, we come across technological phenomena and theoretical concepts that are still in use and/or are revived. We will, for example, meet the timely concept ‘invisible work’ and we will meet former conversations about the technology ‘Artificial Intelligence’. With such reading of the history of WG 9.8 we will encounter a history where technology is deeply intertwined with the social, the cultural, and the political.

The response revolves around boundaries of academic disciplines, knowledge production, care, and the creation of we-they and otherness. The dominant knowledge system in disciplines is contested through a discussion of the separation of use and production of technology/science. Researchers’ entanglement and how this makes sense in the research process is also highlighted. In the portrayal of old and young engineers a “we”, “they”, and “otherness” are constituted without a reflection. Care and thinking-with care are introduced to extend the discussion of care. In the end it is recommended to be more focused in choices of aim, theoretical framework, and method.

The prevalence of gender stereotypes in STEM fields is evidenced by a large body of literature across the world, however, this area of research is still understudied in the Western Balkan region. To get a better knowledge of the extent of studies addressing this topic, we conducted a scoping review investigating existing gender stereotypes and educational choices in STEM in that region. As expected, the number of studies discovered was very limited, despite our generous inclusion criteria. In these limited studies, however, we found ample evidence of existing gender stereotypes in STEM and their impact on career aspirations. As this scoping review focused only on high-school university students, we conclude the paper with thoughts on future work ideas to expand the target group as well as to use systems thinking as an overarching perspective to conduct a holistic examination. This could be achieved by including relevant actors within and outside the immediate context, such as parents, schools, policymakers, businesses, and organizations. Finally, the paper also discusses the impact and opportunities that come with digitalization efforts, which could be leveraged to increase women participation in STEM.

Gender stereotypes in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education and careers are widely present, especially in countries with emerging economies. Making the youth interested in STEM education and careers is an important goal set by the European Commission. Consequently, understanding the obstacles youth face when choosing to study STEM is critical for policy interventions in closing the gender gap in STEM education and careers. To this end, in this paper we report on a study conducted to understand experiences of high-school and university students who study STEM. The results from two future workshops with students and a panel discussion with experts reveals three main challenges: institutional, design, and social challenges. For each challenge, we propose and discuss a respective solution: digital citizenship, universal design, and norm criticism. We conclude the paper with thoughts on the limitations of this study and directions in which this study could develop in the future.

Women make up half of the society, however they account for 40% of the labor force, according to a report from the World Economic Forum (WEF, 2020). Data shows that globally, the number of women working in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers is still low (ILOStat, 2019). In Europe, women hold only 17.2% of ICT-related jobs and only 13.1% of STEM graduates are women (Eurostat, 2019). Data on emerging economies, such as Kosovo, exhibit similar trends. In the academic year of 2017/2020, out of the total number of active and graduated students in STEM fields at the University of Prishtina, women comprised 32% and 44%, respectively (MEST & KAS, 2018). Closing the gender gap was identified as a possibility for growth and reignition of the economies across Central and Easter Europe by a recent McKinsey report (Iszkowska et al., 2021). The need to keep up with the social, technological, and economic developments of our time has brought to the forefront the importance of preparing the new generations of citizens with skills in STEM. Indeed, the European Commission recognized that one of the most ambitious goals is to make STEM education and STEM careers attractive to youth, and that interventions to address the crisis should start early (European Commission, Horizon 2020).

Therefore, in this paper we report on our research insights aiming to have a better understanding of challenges related to women studying STEM fields. The research efforts reported in this paper have been conducted in Kosovo during December 2021. The approach used in this research was based on the future workshop method conducted with18 high school female students from two high schools in Prishtina and 9 university female students in Kosovo. Understanding STEM experiences of students during high school is important because this period represents a critical juncture when decisions to pursue STEM are made and early interventions have been shown to be particularly effective (Kim, Sinatra, & Senyarian, 2018). The main goals of these workshops were to discover what factors have influenced the choice of these students to study STEM; understand if there are any challenges they face as STEM students; as well as their prospect for employment after graduation. The rich data collected during the workshops have been complemented with qualitative inputs from relevant stakeholders, consisting of representatives from government, educational, and civil society institutions through a panel discussion setup. Preliminary data from the workshops as well as from panel discussions revealed numerous obstacles that young women in Kosovo face while pursuing STEM education. These obstacles could be clustered in in three main themes, namely: institutional (e.g., lack of information flow, institutional support and awareness); social (e.g., lack of support from parents and teachers to study STEM); and design (e.g., lack of gender sensitive design of premises).

This paper aims to challenge the prevailing discourse that ICT sector and education thereof, is predominantly male oriented. We argue that this problem could be best addressed through a systems approach, which would enable deeper insights by unraveling the complex reality. While we recognize that dominating discourses build on a view of a systematic underrepresentation of women in ICT related education in Sweden, we posit that this is not a universal and homogeneous issue. In this research we focus on two ICT study programs in a Swedish University, one with a high proportion of women compared to the other and explore why women select one program over the other. We argue that this rather uniform dominant discourse is shaped by the narrow and simplified conception of ICT, reduced to mere technologies and ICT sector to e.g., programmers, system designers, software engineers. However, the reality is more complex and diverse. Digitalization which has permeated all spheres of life renders the prevailing discourse obsolete. That is, women are involved in the digitalization of today´s society that has unleashed profound systemic societal changes, transforming traditional sectors, work practices and enabling unconventional jobs. One way to contest the dominant discourse and to provide a more nuanced picture of ICT sector is through the concept of digitalization and systems thinking. Previous research has examined the reasons behind the women underrepresentation, and in Sweden over years several projects and efforts have been undertaken to stimulate women participation. Whilst this research does not disregard the gendered perspective, it instead focuses on unraveling the conditions of women inclusion in the ICT higher education. This emphasis provides a fundamental and complementary perspective to the whole diverse picture of ICT education. In the presentation, I will further discuss what kind of systems approach might help address this complex real-world problem.

We draw on feminist technoscience to analyze actions and activities performed between participants in a Participatory Design workshop that unfolds in a realm of e-government. Stepping into this empirical site we want to show how participants (invited persons, researchers, methods, artifacts, gender stereotypes) become with each other. With such take on research endeavors we feed into current discussion in feminist research by illustrating how theory and practice intertwine and create realities.

An ageing population is an emerging phenomenon in Europe and the rest of the world. Seniors face issues of social isolation and loneliness. Recently the research focus in ICT design has also turned to social media that can sustain seniors’ engagement and participation in social activities even when it is physically a challenge for them to leave home. Design and re-design of social media may support seniors’ engagement and participation in social activities, contributing to mitigate the feeling of loneliness and social isolation. In this paper, the focus is on understanding seniors’ social activities and their relationship to social media which may support their relationship. With Participatory Design – a reflective design approach, we have involved seniors in reflecting on possible future social media that can support and enrich social relationships. The participative methods used are cartographic mapping and future workshop, both appropriate for seniors to get involved in reflecting, thinking and making design alternatives together with other participants. We discuss how is to involve seniors in PD and what we need to know to design better future social media that can support seniors.

Science is according to the Swedish legislation for higher education (Högskoleförordningen) a central quality aim for higher educations. In the Swedish Higher Education Authority’s (UKÄ) new quality assurance system, the integration of gender equality is one of several quality aspects that are being measured. This paper concerns a planned study with the aim to explore how feminist technoscience can contribute to challenging existing science practices, and a critical approach, while at the same time work as a theoretical resource for the integration of gender equality in Swedish higher IT educations. Feminist technoscience makes possible critical questions about scientific practices in both educational contexts and in work life, about researchers’ positioning, about consequences, and about power issues. Posing such questions is central in IT educations, since we live in a society in which digital technologies increasingly constitute preconditions for a working reality, and both reproduce existing structures and form new patterns. In this reality it is central to ask whether current science practices are enough, and how feminist technoscience can make a difference, in those educations that produce the IT experts of the tomorrow. The study will be conducted as a qualitative field study with a focus on how teachers and students in Swedish higher IT educations practice science and a critical approach, and feminist technoscience in their educations.