# Dealing with Gender Bias Issues in Data-Algorithmic Processes: A Social-Statistical Perspective
## 2 The Algorithm Concept
### Algorithm Concept in Social Sciences  
Mathematics and engineering are not the only knowledge areas that have been interested in algorithms. One of the trends characterizing the current western societies is the increasing role of mathematics and computer science as influential mechanisms that shape and guide our behavior and the governance of society. This is what experts, such as [PERSON] et al. [22], have agreed to call \"algocracy\" or governance of the algorithms. Thus, algorithms cease to be understood as autonomous mathematical formulas, and begin to be conceptualized also in the context of their social impact. From a social perspective, algorithms have been conceived, from their significance and power, as a particular form of rationality associated with a general mode of social ordering [23], or directly as a culture [24]. Beyond their diversity, what all these approaches have in common is the idea that talking about algorithms is not simply talking about technical materials. It also arises the need for new additional meanings of the algorithm concept, based on their applications in everyday life situations. Algorithms are not only created in a social context and by certain social groups -which respond to certain interests-, but they frequently intervene and operate in social reality. As pointed out by [25], an algorithm is usually employed in a context of trial and error processes, interactions, collaboration, discussion and negotiation among various intervening actors. All these actions show a common social and cultural background. Hence, to consider them as the expression of a pure mental effort (i.e., as a process of abstraction), might be an oversimplification of reality. While a social scientist is usually unable to fully understand the mathematical details inside an algorithm, a computer scientist might not always be fully aware of the social and cultural context in which her algorithms will be implemented. These background divergences generate barriers in the way both communities communicate with each other. In order to establish a common ground between these communities, this paper enriches the technical definition of an algorithm with a social one. Hereby, this paper offers a broad view of the algorithm concept which goes beyond the idea of an autonomous mathematical entity to consider it as a complex socio-technical system. Within this common perspective, the concept of \"algorithmic culture\" is born as one that embraces algorithms simultaneously both as computer technology and as formative tools for the social domain. To understand how algorithms, society, and culture are intertwined, [PERSON] et al. [2] identify two overlapping but distinguishable levels of entanglement. First, the level of social inequalities that are reproduced by combining practical purpose and automated decision-making. Secondly, the level of cultural work of algorithms in sorting and ranking. Figure 3 represents a more social view of the algorithm concept, one which highlights the importance of technical and social aspects in their composition, while assuming that both aspects are articulated in a co-constitutive manner. One of the concerns that has guided social science interest in algorithms is the conviction that they are likely to produce and reproduce social inequalities. The socio-technical perspective is clear in this regard: algorithms and their effects are contextualized within the human world [2]. On this basis, algorithms should be divided not according to what they \"are\" but according to what they \"do\". Thus, considering algorithms as socio-technical systems implies also considering the possible existence of biases in information systems,  
Figure 3: Socio-technical definition of the algorithm concept. specifically in historical data employed to train algorithms. This social perspective aims at analyzing the possible existence of discrimination factors in the data-algorithmic process.