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arxiv: 2606.18423 · v1 · pith:DQ3Y7U4Ynew · submitted 2026-06-16 · 💻 cs.SE

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Gender Representation in Software Engineering Education Videos on YouTube

Isabella Gra{\ss}l , Alexander Serebrenik , Giuseppe Destefanis This is my paper

Pith reviewed 2026-06-26 23:24 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 💻 cs.SE
keywords gender representationsoftware engineering educationYouTube tutorialscritical discourse analysisagency gapgender normsonline educationmasculine defaults
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The pith

YouTube software engineering tutorials mostly feature male characters in technical and decision-making roles while female characters are absent or passive.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

This paper applies critical discourse analysis to 200 manually selected English and German software engineering tutorial videos on YouTube. It establishes that male characters and masculine linguistic defaults dominate the content. The study identifies an agency gap in which technical and decision-making roles go almost exclusively to male actors. Female actors appear rarely and usually in low-agency or supporting positions. A sympathetic reader would care because these videos form part of the educational resources that can shape perceptions of who belongs in the field and may contribute to the ongoing gender gap in software engineering.

Core claim

The paper claims that male characters and masculine linguistic defaults dominate the tutorials examined through critical discourse analysis. Technical and decision-making roles are almost exclusively assigned to male actors, while female actors are either absent or tend to passive, low-agency roles. The findings indicate that software engineering education on YouTube may reproduce gendered norms, in which linguistic and representational gatekeeping may serve as a symbolic barrier to software engineering.

What carries the argument

Critical discourse analysis of gender representation through contextual domains and linguistic identity markers that reveals an agency gap in role assignments.

Load-bearing premise

The 200 manually selected tutorials are representative of software engineering education videos on YouTube and the coding in the critical discourse analysis reliably captures gendered norms without substantial selection or interpretive bias.

What would settle it

A larger or randomly sampled collection of tutorials that shows female actors frequently taking technical and decision-making roles would falsify the reported dominance and agency gap.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2606.18423 by Alexander Serebrenik, Giuseppe Destefanis, Isabella Gra{\ss}l.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: Distribution of context domains across videos. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p010_1.png] view at source ↗
Figure 4
Figure 4. Figure 4: Balanced gender representation in an agile context ( [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p016_4.png] view at source ↗
read the original abstract

Educational resources may frame students' perceptions of who belongs in software engineering, which is relevant given the field's ongoing gender gap. However, we know little about the hidden curriculum regarding gender in online learning spaces. This study presents a critical discourse analysis of 200 manually analysed English and German software engineering tutorials on YouTube, examining gender representation through contextual domains and linguistic identity markers. Our results show that male characters and masculine linguistic defaults dominate the tutorials. We identified an agency gap, in which technical and decision-making roles are almost exclusively assigned to male actors, while female actors are either absent or tend to passive, low-agency roles. The findings indicate that software engineering education on YouTube may reproduce gendered norms, in which linguistic and representational gatekeeping may serve as a symbolic barrier to software engineering.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

2 major / 1 minor

Summary. The paper conducts a critical discourse analysis of 200 manually selected English- and German-language software engineering tutorials on YouTube. It reports that male characters and masculine linguistic defaults predominate, identifies an agency gap in which technical and decision-making roles are assigned almost exclusively to male actors while female actors are absent or confined to passive, low-agency roles, and concludes that these patterns may reproduce gendered norms that function as symbolic barriers in software engineering education.

Significance. If the interpretive patterns are robust, the work supplies concrete evidence of how online educational videos embed gendered representations, extending CDA approaches to a high-visibility digital platform and linking them to the persistent gender gap in software engineering. The focus on both visual/contextual domains and linguistic markers offers a replicable template for examining hidden curricula in other technical fields.

major comments (2)
  1. [Abstract] Abstract (study design description): the central claim of an 'agency gap' with roles 'almost exclusively assigned to male actors' rests on the manual analysis of 200 videos, yet the abstract provides no sampling frame, inclusion/exclusion criteria, or justification for the English/German selection; without these, the representativeness required to support the generalization that YouTube SE education reproduces gendered norms cannot be assessed.
  2. [Abstract] Abstract (study design description): the coding of contextual domains and linguistic identity markers that underpins the 'technical and decision-making roles' versus 'passive, low-agency' distinction is described only as 'manually analysed'; no coding scheme, codebook, or inter-rater reliability statistic is referenced, leaving the interpretive pattern vulnerable to single-coder bias and preventing evaluation of coding consistency.
minor comments (1)
  1. [Abstract] The abstract would benefit from a brief statement of the number of coders and whether any reliability checks were performed, even if qualitative standards differ from quantitative ones.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

2 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the constructive feedback on the abstract. We agree that greater transparency on study design in the abstract will help readers evaluate the claims and will revise accordingly while preserving conciseness. Point-by-point responses follow.

read point-by-point responses

  1. Referee: [Abstract] Abstract (study design description): the central claim of an 'agency gap' with roles 'almost exclusively assigned to male actors' rests on the manual analysis of 200 videos, yet the abstract provides no sampling frame, inclusion/exclusion criteria, or justification for the English/German selection; without these, the representativeness required to support the generalization that YouTube SE education reproduces gendered norms cannot be assessed.

    Authors: We acknowledge the abstract's brevity limits detail on sampling. The Methods section specifies the manual selection of 200 videos via targeted YouTube searches for software engineering tutorials, with inclusion limited to English- and German-language educational content and exclusion of non-tutorial, non-SE, or duplicate videos. English and German were chosen to capture the two largest language communities producing SE tutorials. We agree a brief reference to this purposive sampling and language rationale belongs in the abstract to support assessment of scope and will revise the abstract accordingly. revision: yes

  2. Referee: [Abstract] Abstract (study design description): the coding of contextual domains and linguistic identity markers that underpins the 'technical and decision-making roles' versus 'passive, low-agency' distinction is described only as 'manually analysed'; no coding scheme, codebook, or inter-rater reliability statistic is referenced, leaving the interpretive pattern vulnerable to single-coder bias and preventing evaluation of coding consistency.

    Authors: The abstract summarises the approach as 'manually analysed'; the Methods section provides the full coding scheme, codebook definitions for contextual domains (technical roles, decision-making) and linguistic markers, with examples. As a qualitative CDA study, analysis was performed by the authors with iterative consensus discussion rather than formal inter-rater reliability metrics, which are atypical for interpretive discourse work. To increase transparency we will add a concise reference to the coding process in the abstract and ensure the codebook is explicitly referenced or appended. revision: partial

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No significant circularity; qualitative interpretive study

full rationale

The paper performs a critical discourse analysis on 200 manually selected YouTube tutorials, reporting patterns in gender representation via contextual domains and linguistic markers. It contains no equations, fitted parameters, statistical predictions, or derivation chains. No self-citations are invoked as load-bearing uniqueness theorems or ansatzes. The findings are presented as interpretive results from the analysis itself, with no reduction of claims to inputs by construction. This is a standard non-circular outcome for qualitative CDA work.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 0 axioms · 0 invented entities

This is a qualitative social science study; no free parameters, mathematical axioms, or invented entities are introduced. The analysis rests on interpretive assumptions standard to critical discourse analysis.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.1-grok · 5666 in / 1129 out tokens · 39065 ms · 2026-06-26T23:24:35.599507+00:00 · methodology

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