3 ms·

This addresses a straw man; nobody is saying that there is systemic bias against _all_ minorities, just some. This in particular is the concept of a "model min

This addresses a straw man; nobody is saying that there is systemic bias against _all_ minorities, just some. This in particular is the concept of a "model minority". Culture difference cannot explain why women are not well represented in tech. Culture difference can be a part of systemic bias, anyway. Let's say you have some programming job. The interviews focus on questions about frobbing linked lists (which is often the case). Now, it turns out that people from demographic A are more likely to focus on these questions when practicing for interviews, whereas demographic B focuses on honing the skill set they need for the actual job (algorithmy linked list stuff may not be necessary at all!). You'd say that it's not possible for /culture/ to change how you study. There's hard evidence against that -- take India for example, CS students in India focus a lot on solving typical interview questions and less so on other skills. This stems from the general culture of finding and using a formulaic method of succeeding at academics. I don't like this culture (it ultimately leads to cases like kids who can solve whatever they need in quiz papers but don't actually understand the topic), and always have spoken out against it, but it's there. But, you say, that's a different country, what about a minority demographic within the same country? Firstly, minorities more often than not are segregated into their own communities (socially, if not physically) due to various voluntary and involuntary reasons, and the effect can be the same as being in a different country (albeit milder). Now realize that an interviewer will probably design questions around the kind that they are used to and that they (and their peers) would do well with. This is an unconscious bias -- interview questions are more often than not tests of how similar you are to the (often non-diverse) peer group of the interviewer, and not actually a test of how good you are as a candidate. This is an association fallacy, "all people like my peer group are good programmers, hence all good programmers are like my peer group". Of course, interviewing is often about avoiding bad programmers much more than it is about hiring good ones -- generally folks are okay with accidentally not hiring a good programmer, but want to avoid hiring a bad one at all costs. Thus tweaking your interview process to target a subset of the set of all good programmers isn't that bad, is it? Except that this targeting carries an unconscious bias inside it, and unfairly ends up disproportionately excluding minorities. If you're going to use a process prone to false negatives on purpose, be damn sure that the likelihood of someone being a false negative is in no way correlated with the demographic they are from. You may not have designed the process with this correlation in mind (hence, "unconscious bias"), but this bias is still there. ----- And it doesn't have to be culture differences. You have a lot of other behavioral differences due to economic status or demographic which are unconsciously excluded in interviews. E.g. women are less likely to apply for jobs where they do not have all the listed qualifications, but men are very likely to apply, and get hired, because not all the qualifications were necessary anyway. The fix here is to be clear on what you absolutely need in a candidate, and what would be "nice to have". And it doesn't have to be behavioral differences either. Sometimes it has to do with defining your inputs. Many companies focus on hiring from a set of people which itself is biased. It can be by hiring only from certain colleges (and then inexplicably whining about the "pipeline" -- you chose the pipeline!). It can be from having unconscious or conscious discrimination against autodidacts. Or code bootcamp folks. If you restrict your inputs to an already biased source, you will get biased results. There are tons and tons of articles and papers out there about this. These aren't unknown effects. They're well established. None of this is on purpose, of course (at least, I hope it isn't!). But it's still a bias, even if it's unconscious. And the onus is on the creators of the bias to fix it. There are a million reasons out there why various demographics aren't well-represented in tech. It's just lazy to blame it on the demographics and say "it's cultural differences" without realizing the mistakes made by tech cos in making culture a factor in the first place.

balls187 10y ago
> This addresses a straw man; nobody is saying that there is systemic bias against _all_ minorities, just some. What bias occurs against my [Filipino,Vietnamese,Thai,Malaysian,Pakistani...] brothers, that doesn't also apply towards me, an Indian? > There's hard evidence against that -- take India for example, CS students in India focus a lot on solving typical interview questions and less so on other skills...it ultimately leads to cases like kids who can solve whatever they need in quiz papers but don't actually understand the topic. What about American CS Students, who presumably don't have a "teach to the test" based education system? They are well represented in tech. I'm going with Google here. It's a pipeline issue. Fewer folks that pursue degrees in tech, fewer applicants in the pool.
- Manishearth 10y ago
  > What bias occurs against my [Filipino,Vietnamese,Thai,Malaysian,Pakistani...] brothers, that doesn't also apply towards me, an Indian? > What about American CS Students, who presumably don't have a "teach to the test" based education system? They are well represented in tech. I gave the "teach to the test" example as an example of how culture affects tech interviews and why that's a problem on the interviewer's side, not as a specific example of why Indians do well in the U.S.. Nor was it a litmus test for "people who will do well in interviews", because many other factors contribute. Though "teach to the test" is probably a part of why Indians do well. In my comment above I explained the mechanism by which the majority white-male-american tech industry unconsciously ends up crafting interviews where white-male-americans will do better. It wasn't about giving an exhaustive set of reasons as to why each demographic does the way it does. But if you want examples, just google "pipeline problem tech" and you'll get more than enough examples in the hundreds of articles out there about why the "pipeline" is a red herring, often with examples as to why various interview practices (or other practices) end up excluding demographics. I gave one example about women, and below I talk a bit more about "choosing the pipeline", but I'm not going to start a discussion where I give an example of systemic bias for/against one group and you ask why it doesn't apply to another group ad infinitum. These biases are complex, intertwined, and not always tangible. There is a simple mechanism as to how they appear, and lots of evidence that they exist (interviewing.io itself has done some of research on this by running voice modulation etc on their platform, but there's plenty more research otherwise too), independently of the pipeline. Edit: I guess an example that folks might find easier to understand is in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12860397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12860397 , it's an unconscious bias against self taught people. Most self taught people are pretty picky in what they actually do, because they're often doing it for fun. On the other hand, if you are a CS student, you will learn whatever is taught in colleges, and follow what your peers do (e.g. practice coding puzzles for interviews). So a self taught person may not be great at coding puzzles because that's not an actual skill that they've ever needed when coding for fun, whereas CS students tend to be competent with these. I know many autodidacts who have had issues with this but are otherwise great programmers. I myself am self taught, and while I did practice coding puzzles, I have felt such biases too. > Fewer folks that pursue degrees in tech, fewer applicants in the pool. ... > degrees in tech and here it is again, you're choosing your pipeline. I just talked about that. There are plenty of autodidacts out there. Plenty of folks (often from a lower income background who cannot afford college, or be able to juggle college and work) who go to coding bootcamps. Plenty of folks who do go to college, but go to less prestigious ones because they can't afford it or they have to go to college near their holes (and they have less mobility because of job/family to support/whatever). Again, there are articles all over the internet about this. I recall reading about companies which target historically black colleges in their interview process. They don't quota it or otherwise disallow people from interviewing with them; they just go to the colleges for campus interviews. No different from other companies who go to Stanford for campus interviews.

balls187 10y ago

> This addresses a straw man; nobody is saying that there is systemic bias against _all_ minorities, just some. What bias occurs against my [Filipino,Vietnamese,Thai,Malaysian,Pakistani...] brothers, that doesn't also apply towards me, an Indian? > There's hard evidence against that -- take India for example, CS students in India focus a lot on solving typical interview questions and less so on other skills...it ultimately leads to cases like kids who can solve whatever they need in quiz papers but don't actually understand the topic. What about American CS Students, who presumably don't have a "teach to the test" based education system? They are well represented in tech. I'm going with Google here. It's a pipeline issue. Fewer folks that pursue degrees in tech, fewer applicants in the pool.

Manishearth 10y ago
> What bias occurs against my [Filipino,Vietnamese,Thai,Malaysian,Pakistani...] brothers, that doesn't also apply towards me, an Indian? > What about American CS Students, who presumably don't have a "teach to the test" based education system? They are well represented in tech. I gave the "teach to the test" example as an example of how culture affects tech interviews and why that's a problem on the interviewer's side, not as a specific example of why Indians do well in the U.S.. Nor was it a litmus test for "people who will do well in interviews", because many other factors contribute. Though "teach to the test" is probably a part of why Indians do well. In my comment above I explained the mechanism by which the majority white-male-american tech industry unconsciously ends up crafting interviews where white-male-americans will do better. It wasn't about giving an exhaustive set of reasons as to why each demographic does the way it does. But if you want examples, just google "pipeline problem tech" and you'll get more than enough examples in the hundreds of articles out there about why the "pipeline" is a red herring, often with examples as to why various interview practices (or other practices) end up excluding demographics. I gave one example about women, and below I talk a bit more about "choosing the pipeline", but I'm not going to start a discussion where I give an example of systemic bias for/against one group and you ask why it doesn't apply to another group ad infinitum. These biases are complex, intertwined, and not always tangible. There is a simple mechanism as to how they appear, and lots of evidence that they exist (interviewing.io itself has done some of research on this by running voice modulation etc on their platform, but there's plenty more research otherwise too), independently of the pipeline. Edit: I guess an example that folks might find easier to understand is in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12860397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12860397 , it's an unconscious bias against self taught people. Most self taught people are pretty picky in what they actually do, because they're often doing it for fun. On the other hand, if you are a CS student, you will learn whatever is taught in colleges, and follow what your peers do (e.g. practice coding puzzles for interviews). So a self taught person may not be great at coding puzzles because that's not an actual skill that they've ever needed when coding for fun, whereas CS students tend to be competent with these. I know many autodidacts who have had issues with this but are otherwise great programmers. I myself am self taught, and while I did practice coding puzzles, I have felt such biases too. > Fewer folks that pursue degrees in tech, fewer applicants in the pool. ... > degrees in tech and here it is again, you're choosing your pipeline. I just talked about that. There are plenty of autodidacts out there. Plenty of folks (often from a lower income background who cannot afford college, or be able to juggle college and work) who go to coding bootcamps. Plenty of folks who do go to college, but go to less prestigious ones because they can't afford it or they have to go to college near their holes (and they have less mobility because of job/family to support/whatever). Again, there are articles all over the internet about this. I recall reading about companies which target historically black colleges in their interview process. They don't quota it or otherwise disallow people from interviewing with them; they just go to the colleges for campus interviews. No different from other companies who go to Stanford for campus interviews.