Exclusiveness vs. Inclusiveness in Software Development: The Triple-Loop-Learning Approach

Abstract

The question of digital divide along gender and culture is still an important one and has to be re-visited after a long period of scientific discourses. Most of the scientific contributions focus on issues of gender-specific use of computer systems or gender-specific segregation of the field of information and communication technologies. Contrary to those approaches, this chapter deals with how exclusion mechanisms are created during the software development process. It is shown that system designers are strongly biased in terms of gender and culture and unconsciously use their own mental models. Selected results of empirical studies demonstrate how these a-priori assumptions can be made visible, and a new approach of system design, based on the triple-loop-learning concept, will be presented.