L/earning a living: practices and recognition of women's on-the-job and informal learning in the information technology field

Information technology (IT) has been characterized as central to globalization and nation-states' competitive edge in the global economy. A highly masculinized field, IT is paradoxically characterized as gender-neutral, a field which expands opportunities for women's career and income development. For these reasons, feminist researchers regard it as an interesting context in which to explore contemporary issues of gender, learning and work. Based in Canada, our study broadens the scope of the literature in this area, extending the conceptualization of the IT field beyond its central occupations such as computer programming, software engineering and network administration, to niches such as technical communication, project and operations management and even librarianship and secretarial jobs. In this article, we focus on how gender has shaped the learning pathways and the politics of recognition experienced and articulated by women working across the IT field. We have purposefully gathered work and learning histories of women without formal IT credentials. Their stories offer an important counter-narrative to the neo-liberal discourse of equality and re-insert informal learning into the mainstream discourse of lifelong learning.