Abstract

Women play a fundamental role in society, sustainable development, and the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry. In recent years it has been explicitly stated that society must invest in and facilitate scenarios for more women to find a space for professional development. In the ICT area, we find a perfect scenario for women to have valuable job opportunities with long-term projections since it is an area that fails to meet the need for professionals every year. However, the enrollment of women in universities and institutes that offer careers in ICT has not increased considerably over the years, and retention is not encouragingeither. This article aims to present an exploratory review to identify themotivations that drive young women to enter and remain until they graduatein a traditional career in Computer Science and to determine which professional roles are primarily associated with the female profile in this industry. The methodology applied consisted of a systematicmapping of the literature relevant to the study, which is complemented with a case study analysis involving students and professional women in the discipline through surveys. As a result,we obtained a preliminary approach to principal motivations to enter and remain in a university career in ICT and if these aspects replicate the recurrent professional positions women perform in the area.