Studying Gender While ‘Studying Up’

This article discusses the epistemological challenges of contending with hegemonic norms while ‘studying up’. In particular, I discuss the challenges that I faced in following feminist and queer approaches to gender while conducting fieldwork on the gendered norms and values produced through undergraduate computer science education in Singapore. These approaches suggest critical questions about the construction of computer science knowledge and of the common focus on the ‘woman problem’ in computer science. While feminist and queer approaches enabled me to find partial connections with participants, the heteronormativity in/of computer science and problem-solving-based hegemonic epistemology brought challenges in maintaining my methodological and theoretical approach. I highlight the need for closer examination of the power dynamics and how these shape the epistemological risks of fieldwork while studying up.