The Computer Science for All movement is bringing CS to K-12 classrooms across the nation. At the same time, new technologies created by computer scientists have been reproducing existing inequities that directly impact today's youth, while being “promoted and perceived as more objective or progressive than the discriminatory systems of a previous era” [1, p. 5–6]. Current efforts are being made to expose students to the social impact and ethics of computing at both the K-12 and university-level—which we refer to as “socially responsible computing” (SRC) in this paper. Yet there is a lack of research describing what such SRC teaching and learning actively involve and look like, particularly in K-12 classrooms. This paper fills this gap with findings from a research-practice partnership, through a qualitative study in an Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles classroom enrolling low-income Latino/a/x students from a large urban community. The findings illustrate 1) details of teaching practice and student learning during discussions about SRC; 2) the impact these SRC experiences have on student engagement with CS; 3) a teacher's reflections on key considerations for effective SRC pedagogy; and 4) why students’ perspectives and agency must be centered through SRC in computing education.
Abolitionist Computer Science Teaching: Moving from Access to Justice.
As high school computer science course offerings have expanded over the past decade, gaps in race and gender have remained. This study embraces the “All” in the “CS for All”
movement by shifting beyond access and toward abolitionist computer science teaching. Using data from professional development observations and interviews, we lift the voices of
BIPOC CS teachers and bring together tenets put forth by Love (2019) for abolitionist teaching along with how these tenets map onto the work occurring in CS classrooms. Our findings indicate the importance of BIPOC teacher representation in CS classrooms and ways abolitionist teaching tenets can inform educator’s efforts at moving beyond broadening participation and toward radical inclusion, educational freedom, and self-determination, for ALL.
- Award ID(s):
- 1837394
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10297381
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of Research in Equity and Sustained Participation in Computing (RESPECT)
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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