Access, Power, and the Framework of a CS Education Ecosystem (original) (raw)

Black Women Speak: Examining Power, Privilege, and Identity in CS Education

ACM Transactions on Computing Education

Despite the increasing number of women receiving bachelor’s degrees in computing (i.e., Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, etc.), a closer look reveals that the percentage of Black women in computing has significantly dropped in recent years, highlighting the underrepresentation of Black women and its negative impact on broadening participation in the field of computing. The literature reveals that several K-16 interventions have been designed to increase the representation of Black women and girls in computing. Despite these best efforts, the needle seems to have barely moved in increasing the representation or the retention of Black women in computing. Instead, the primary goals have been to recruit and retain women in the CS pipeline using gender-focused efforts intended to increase the number of women who also identify as members of racialized groups. However, these gender-focused efforts have fallen short of increasing the number of Black women in c...

Moving Students of Color from Consumers to Producers of Technology

2017

To address disparities in computing among girls of color, this chapter examines the impact of a multi-year, out-of-school computer science intervention with n=108 female high school students of color. This rigorous and comprehensive 5-week computer science intervention designed within a culturally-relevant framework, demonstrated the following outcomes: 1) one exposure to the intervention demonstrated a significant impact on computer science knowledge, attitudes, and access to diverse peers/role models, 2) the impact of the intervention endured after a 9-month period, and 3) repeated-exposure to the intervention (2 sequential 5-week interventions) produced greater growth than just one summer. These findings suggest that short-term interventions can be impactful, and repeated exposure opportunities are

Voices of African American Women in Computer Science: Implications for K-12 Stem Education and Beyond

2020

Voices of African American Women in Computer Science is a qualitative dissertation about African American women who have successfully completed a computer science degree. This research explored how computer science education departments in predominantly White institutions (PWIs) contribute to the oppression of African American females. Critical race feminism (CRF) provides the platform that places the voices of women of color who have successfully obtained a computer science degree despite difficulties that have been imposed by the reality of racial biases that are present throughout the American education system and American culture at large. This research was guided by the following primary question: What are the unique experiences that have influenced the success of African American females who have obtained degrees in computer science from PWIs? In order to establish fulfilling narratives of the participants' experiences the following secondary questions are also relevant: What factors have influenced participants' decision to major in computer science? What were the experiences of the participants during their time in their computer science program? How do these women make meaning of their experiences? Both narrative analysis and analysis of narrative were used to interpret data gathered using detailed interviews. Findings were presented using both methods in an attempt to show a detailed use of data, as well as to also push the boundaries of CRF with the creation of guidelines for CRF methodology. The results show that African American xiii women in computer science have unique but powerful stories. This study highlights both positive, and negative factors that influenced these women during and after their academic experiences and fills gaps left by previous research in this area. Overall, this study holds implications for K-12 and higher education institutions as well as policy makers, and those who would simply pick up the torch of mentorship.

Employing an Abolitionist, Critical Race Pedagogy in CS: Centering the Voices, Experiences and Technological Innovations of Black Youth

Journal of Computer Science Integration, 2023

This paper proposes a pedagogical extension of culturally responsive praxis called abolitionist, critical race pedagogy in CS. To showcase the power and potentiality of this pedagogy, this paper examines the experiences of 2 cohorts of Black high school students (n = 25) who participated in a critical race technology course that was taught during the dual pandemic of COVID-19 and anti-Black racism. The goal of this summer course was to employ an abolitionist, critical race pedagogy in CS to foster Black students' ability to critically examine the ubiquity of anti-Black racism within the socio-technical architectures (e.g. code, data, algorithms and interfaces) of popular technologies, and to leverage critical race computational thinking to design race-conscious and justice-oriented technology products.

Democratizing computer science knowledge: transforming the face of computer science through public high school education

Learning, Media and Technology

Despite the fact that computer science (CS) is the driver of technological innovations across all disciplines and aspects of our lives, including participatory media, high school CS too commonly fails to incorporate the perspectives and concerns of low-income students of color. This article describes a partnership program – Exploring Computer Science (ECS) – that directly counters this problem in our nation’s second largest school district. With a mission of democratizing CS learning, we argue that despite the constraints of working within public schools, it is imperative to do so. We discuss the ECS program based on inquiry, culturally relevant curriculum, and equity-oriented pedagogy. We describe two ECS-affiliated projects that highlight the importance of authorship, purpose, and agency for student learning and engagement: DietSens using mobile technology to study community health, and a project in which students create video games about social issues. Our work offers a counter-narrative to those who have written off the possibilities of working within public schools and a debunking of the too widespread myth within our educational system that females and students of color are inherently uninterested in rigorous CS learning.

Beyond inclusion: the imperative of criticality in CS education research

Computer Science Education

In 2018 we wrote a call for this special issue of Computer Science Education, articulating that our goal was ".. . to explore who gets to participate in Computer Science Learning Activities, why, and what kinds of opportunities, designs, and programs might restructure current patterns of participation." Our aim was to challenge the narrative that participation is an individual obligation, and relatedly, that choosing not to participate was a failure of will, of preparation, or of motivation. Rather, we hoped to illuminate the collective accomplishment that has led the field of Computer Science Education to replicate the same narrow patterns of participation that are familiar to so many STEM fields. Summer 2020 is a very different time than Fall 2018. Intervening events in the United States have helped us to see that the call was oblique where it could have been explicit, in that it alluded to, but did not call out, the realities that historically oppressed people of color, girls/women, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities face more barriers, have fewer opportunities for engaging, and less support for participation in computer science learning activities than do White and Asian men. This fact is borne out in myriad ways, from which K-12 schools offer computer science, to who majors in computer science in college, to the make-up of professional computer scientist ranks. The rapid expansion of the US-based Black Lives Matter movement in Spring 2020 has helped to push us as coeditors, to speak plainly and forthrightly about the deep impact of racism, sexism/ heterosexism, and ableism on people's lives. Indeed, the questions we have asked ourselves in producing this special issue have changed over time and in relationship to the social uprising occasioned by the continued brutal murders of black US citizens like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers. Today, we are concerned not only with who "gets" to participate, "why," and "restructuring current patterns of participation," but also with how the CS educational research community can contribute to the complete dismantling of deep seated structural impediments to CS learning participation. We view this issue as having global relevance-while the US has a specific history of race discrimination, it shares this history with other imperial and colonizing forces, and it is up to us to recognize and call attention to these practices wherever they persist (Said, 1994). The work of dismantling must proceed on two levels simultaneously: the individual and the institutional. As co-editors, as scholars, as learners, we are deeply aware of the import of the Black Lives Matter movement, particularly in our own US-based context. This awareness demands more of us. Through this heightened awareness, we have engaged in critical reflection of the role of our own positionality (North American, highly educated, White, middle class (straight and queer) women) and our culpability in composing the call that implied certain realities without naming them (Milner, 2007; Zamudio et al., 2009).

Youth APPLab: One Response to (Lacking) Computer Science Education for Students of Color

This paper discusses current conditions of computer science education for students of color and highlights the benefit of several successful projects in addition to Youth APPLab, a year-long winning project funded by the MacArthur Foundation"s 2010 Digital Media & Learning Competition. With proper guidance and motivation, African-American students are motivated and engaged in learning how to become software engineers. Starting with various visual programming environments, students quickly want to advance to text-based languages. These visual tools prove to be great introductions to computer programming but do not teach core concepts. Youth APPLab instructors have observed these and other project results and will use project success to offer subsequent sessions and build and test digital and paperbased tools and other teaching aids.

Promoting and Supporting Computer Science Among Middle School Girls of Color

Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2020

BRIGHT-CS (Building Student Retention through Individuated Guided coHort Training in Computer Science) is a research and development project that 1) creates a computer science learning ecosystem for middle school Black girls and other girls of color and 2) researches the merits of the ecosystem in supporting persistence in CS to determine best practices for broadening participation to other marginalized student groups in computing. First, this paper describes the BRIGHT-CS program, from the structural, instructional, and curricular designs of the program to partnerships with local and community organizations that make up the ecosystem. Second, it presents the initial findings of research on the program and its impacts on student outcomes such as social-emotional attributes associated with persistence. The study employs a multi-method descriptive design. Data includes student surveys, interviews (from students, parents, instructors, teachers, and mentors), artifact reviews, and student observations. The study includes 46 students across four middle schools in two states. At the start of the program, 37% of the students reported being very interested in CS, and 72% reported being very confident in learning CS. This is much higher than a national benchmark of students. After four months of program implementation, the qualitative results show a more nuanced picture of the value of a learning ecosystem. First, the ecosystem offers implicit messaging about equity and success. Second, the ecosystem offers explicit messaging about personal challenges and improvement. Third, following the implicit and explicit messaging to students, students went from naïve confidence to authentic self-efficacy in CS.

Diversity Barriers in K-12 Computer Science Education

Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

As computer science (CS) education expands at the K-12 level, we must be careful to ensure that CS neither exacerbates existing equity gaps in education nor hinders efforts to diversify the field of CS. In this paper, we discuss structural and social barriers that influence Blacks, Hispanics, and girls, based on surveys of 1,672 students, 1,677 parents, 1,008 teachers, 9,805 principals, and 2,307 superintendents in the United States. We find that despite higher interest in CS among Black and Hispanic students and parents, these students experience greater structural barriers in accessing computers and CS classes than White students. And while girls have the same access as boys, social barriers exist with girls reporting lower awareness of CS opportunities outside of classes, less encouragement from teachers and parents, and less exposure to CS role models in the media. It is critical for expanding CS opportunities to address the unique issues for each group.