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Ethnocomputing describes the study of computational ideas and thinking as they appear in the artifacts, epistemologies, designs, and practices of temporally and spatially situated communities (e.g., from computational scientists to textile artisans). It is also about how such communities embed their beliefs and values within computational artifacts. One outcome of ethnocomputing research is the demonstration of how Indigenous and diasporic communities have dynamic computational histories and innovations that are relevant to computer science and computer science education today. From lessons on e-textiles and Native American botanical knowledge to visual programming environments that reveal the algorithms of cornrow braiding in the Black diaspora, this has allowed for anti-racist challenges to white supremacist myths of primitivism in primary and secondary computer science education. While there are studies about how ethnocomputing tools and lessons shape children’s attitudes toward and knowledge of computing, there is no research on what computer science teachers think about one of ethnocomputing’s foundational assumptions: computational ideas and thinking are embedded within Indigenous and vernacular artifacts, epistemologies, designs, and practices. This paper reports findings from interviews with 14 K12 computer science teachers who had been exposed to ethnocomputing educational technologies and activities. From our qualitative analyses, we found that most (n=12) teachers believed that Indigenous and/or vernacular artisans think computationally. We detail their lines of reasoning before turning toward teachers who had ambivalent (n=1) or negative (n=1) positions about this assumption of ethnocomputing research. We discuss the implications of these findings for anti-racist K12 computer science teacher professional development. 

Many secondary school teachers in historically lower performing districts find themselves asked to teach CS without adequate training. They find themselves struggling to build a CS program without the environment necessary to foster student engagement and success. To improve educator preparedness, and transform school cultures, Innovating Detroit’s Robotics Agile Workforce (iDRAW) offers one year of co-instruction by a university instructor with a high school teacher to better prepare the teacher to provide rigorous CS instruction independently in future years. Reflections from this university co-instructor are contained, with insights into the preparation of CS teachers and initiation of CS courses in high schools in the future. 

Students’ lives, both in and out of school, are full of different forms of value. Wealthy students enjoy value in the form of financial capital; their fit to hegemonic social practices; excellent health care and so on. Low-income students, especially those from African American, Native American, and Latinx communities, often lack access to those resources. But there are other forms of value that low-income students do possess. Most examples of what we will call Counter-Hegemonic Practice (CHP) in the African American community involve some mixture of Indigenous African heritage, contemporary innovation in the Black community, and other influences. Moving between these value forms and the computing classroom is a non-trivial task, especially if we are to avoid merely using the appearance of culture to attract students. Our objective in this paper is to provide a framework for deeper investigations into the computational potentials for CHP; its potential as a link between education and community development; and a more dignified role for its utilization in the CS classroom. We report on a series of collaborative engagements with CHP, largely focused on African American communities. 

The concept of enoughness holds importance for both African American and Indigenous communities. In Indigenous contexts, ideas of enoughness can be about moving from extractive to sustainable economies where balance, interdependence, cooperation, and decentralization are prioritized in the production and sharing of resources. In African American contexts enoughness is about challenging deficit views of Black children as maladjusted and incomplete with an insistence that people, especially educators, see their existing brilliance and celebrate the fact that they are already enough. We explore how these concepts shaped efforts to make science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education more equitable, justice-oriented, and generative, thus re-thinking the shape of STEM itself as a platform for generative justice. We detail how this was accomplished through designing and researching educational technologies called Culturally Situated Design Tools. 

Despite the value that cultural experts bring to efforts to broaden the participation of racially minoritized youth in US computer science, there has been little research on supporting their knowledge of computing. This is a missed opportunity to explore the diffusion of computing knowledge across local community contexts where underrepresented youth of color spend time. To address this gap, we present one strategy for promoting cultural experts’ early engagement with code, culturally responsive debugging: using culturally situated expertise and knowledge to debug code. We analyzed qualitative data from a professional development workshop for cultural experts to evaluate this strategy. Our findings have implications for broadening participation efforts and supporting non-programmers’ knowledge of code. 

ABSTRACT Background: As teachers work to broaden the participation of racially and ethnically underrepresented groups in computer science (CS), culturally responsive computing (CRC) becomes more pertinent to formal settings. Objective: Yet, equity-oriented literature offers limited guidance for developing deep forms of CRC in the classroom. In response, we support the claim that “it takes a village” to develop equity-oriented CS education but additively highlight the roles of cultural experts in the process. Methods: We use a case study methodology to explore one instance of this: a collaboration between a multi-racial team of researchers, a Black cosmetologist, and a White technology teacher. Findings: Three themes supported the CRC collaboration: multi-directional relationship building, iterative engagement with culture-computing, and collaborative implementation of a hybrid lesson. Implications: As opposed to orienting broadening participation around extractive metaphors like “pipelines,” our case study constructs the metaphor of an “open village” to orient CS education toward collaborations between schools and the communities they serve. 

Culturally responsive computing (CRC) frames the localized knowledges and practices of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities as assets for working toward racial justice in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). A key part of CRC is the role that local communities play in designing and/or implementing curricula and technologies. Yet, there is a dearth of research on collaborating with local knowledge experts and what they think about CRC. In response, this paper details a two-year-long research project on the design and implementation of one CRC program called pH Empowered. pH Empowered uses computing to bridge Black hairstyling, chemistry, and entrepreneurship. Through a mixed-methods study of one pH Empowered professional development workshop, we show how cosmetologists, urban farmers, and librarians had diverse perspectives about how to be culturally responsive with STEM and the racial justice goal of broadening participation in STEM education. 

Removing racial bias from algorithms or social process is necessary, but alone it is insufficient. The “bias” framework tends to treat race as unwanted noise; best when suppressed or eliminated. This attitude extends to classrooms, where an attempt to be “colorblind” leads to what Pollock calls “colormute”; fearful of even mentioning race. Just as feminists developed “sex-positive feminism” in the 1970s, we now need race-positive design. Thinking about race as positive presence—as cultural capital; histories of resistance; bindings between lands and peoples—can be a generative force in computing development. Here we detail the application and assessment of African fractals, Native American bio-computation; urban artisanal cyborgs and other hybrid forms in which race-positive technology design can make important contributions. These include community-based CS education; computational support for sustainable architecture; unalienated labor in human-machine collaboration, and other forms of generative justice.