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Improving equity in K-12 Computer Science (CS) education benefits from the collaboration of classroom teachers, school counselors, and school leaders. This paper presents the outcomes of a pilot program that brought together cross-functional teams consisting of CS teachers, school counselors, and administrators. Over the course of a year, these teams attended monthly, equity-focused workshops, leveraging pre-existing materials from affordable, high-quality, research based programs. The use of these resources demonstrated benefits of sequencing and synthesizing existing programs. Evidence from surveys and interviews shows that the workshops promoted learning and fostered collaboration between the cross-functional teams that would not have happened otherwise. Participants were motivated by the program, and they generated ideas that turned into actionable projects to promote CS education equity in their schools. While the initiative was well received, areas for improvement were identified, particularly, in school recruitment, workshop structure, and evaluation. This pilot initiative demonstrates that equity-centered programs comprised of cross-functional teams can help achieve systemic improvement of CS education equity
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This content will become publicly available on May 1, 2026
Exploratory Assessment of Advocates & Allies Workshops at a Midwestern STEM-Focused Institution
Advocates and Allies (A&A) programs, designed to educate individuals from demographic majority groups to become more centrally involved in equality endeavors, have been introduced to more than twenty U.S higher education institutions with the support of NSF ADVANCE grant funding. Most evaluations of the impact of these programs have been through indirect measures, such as self-reports of satisfaction with the training. We analyzed data across five years and several iterations of A&A workshops at a research-active, public Midwestern, predominantly White, STEM-dominant university to determine changes in participants’ perceptions of equity at the institution. Results suggest that participants left the workshops with more perceptions of local inequity at the institution than they reported before the workshop. Effects were found for both perceptions of racial equity and perceptions of gender equity but were stronger and more consistent for the latter. The effects of the workshops varied across time. Implications of the results for scholarship and practice for the improvement of advocacy programs are discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1760585
- PAR ID:
- 10600448
- Publisher / Repository:
- ADVANCE Journal, Oregon State University
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The advance journal
- Issue:
- May
- ISSN:
- 2643-7031
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Bias Gender Race/Ethnicity Advocacy Workshops https://doi.org/10.5399/osu/ADVJRNL.6.1.7
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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