Breaking the Code: Confronting Racism in Computer Science through Community, Criticality, and Citizenship

In this episode I unpack Yadav and Heath’s (2022) publication titled “Breaking the code: Confronting racism in computer science through community criticality, and citizenship,” which articulates some biases in CS curricular design and pedagogy, then provides three suggestions for teaching CS as an agenda for social reconstruction.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    each week of this podcast is either an

    interview with a guest or multiple

    guests or a solo episode where i unpack

    some scholarship in relation to computer

    science education in this week's

    particular episode i'm unpacking a paper

    titled breaking the code colon

    confronting racism and computer science

    through community criticality and

    citizenship which was written by aman

    yadav and marie k heath apologies if i

    mispronounced any names here's the

    abstract for this particular paper quote

    the unexamined power and prejudice

    embedded within technologies and

    societies has led to direct harm to

    individuals of color minoritized groups

    and the us ideal of a multi-racial

    democracy rather than an accident of a.i

    or a glitch of the system these

    inequalities highlight the invisible and

    impressive architecture a new gem code

    encoded within the bones of the

    technology at the same time computer

    science education has grown considerably

    over the last decade we ask how can

    educators address embedded injustice

    within the k-12 cs education using

    information asymmetry as a conceptual

    framing we argue for the need to address

    racialized and patriarchal biases

    through curricular design and teaching

    in cs we argue for a participatory and

    community-centered approach to cs

    curricula which facilitates community

    co-designed cs centers criticality and

    foster civic education within cs end

    quote if i were to summarize this paper

    into a single sentence i would say that

    this paper articulates some biases in cs

    curricular design and pedagogy then

    provides three suggestions for teaching

    cs as an agenda for social

    reconstruction now you can find a direct

    link to this paper in the show notes

    which is at jaredoluy.com or by simply

    going to the app that you're listening

    to this on and clicking the link in the

    description you'll also notice in there

    that it says that this podcast is

    powered by boot up which is the

    non-profit that i work for where i

    create 100 free elementary coding

    curriculum and we provide paid

    professional development at boot up

    pd.org and on my website jaredaler.com

    there are hundreds if not thousands of

    computer science education resources

    that are available for free to use but

    have fun exploring them if you haven't

    yet and if you check out my website

    you'll also notice that i post a lot of

    gaming and drumming content but it's

    neatly organized on my website unlike my

    twitter feed which is just a ton of

    content and even more actually coming

    out when i prepare for these podcast

    episodes i go through and i read the

    paper and i'll hide it light it i'll

    write some notes for myself just some

    like pointers and whatnot of things to

    talk about or things that it makes me

    think of or questions i have whatnot now

    i've got to admit there are more

    highlighted parts than there are not i

    highly recommend reading this paper i'm

    gonna do my best to not read the whole

    thing out loud because there are so many

    quotes that i'm going to share and

    attempt to paraphrase just so it's not

    like an issue with copyright or anything

    but again you can find a link to this

    paper in the show notes all right so the

    very first sentence of this paper states

    quote while the segregationist laws of

    the jim crow era have been dismantled

    laws policies and algorithms continue to

    perpetuate racialized inequalities in

    the united states end quote from page

    one and that is a very important quote

    kind of sets up the tone of this

    particular paper so it's like yeah we've

    made some improvements in terms of

    dismantling some of the gem crow error

    laws and whatnot but we still got a lot

    of problems to work through and in

    computer science education it's not just

    the algorithms that are biased there's

    also

    design and curricula in standards

    pedagogies etc that are also biased so

    this paper kind of highlights some

    areas that we need to work on as a field

    and then provide some suggestions on how

    we can work through that so in this

    introduction the authors highlight some

    pretty popular cases of hey here's some

    bias found in facial recognition

    technology how it misidentifies

    particularly black and brown citizens

    also talks about how

    ads go to different types of names so

    like black identifying names and what

    identifying names will receive different

    types of ads and how this can create or

    perpetuate some inequalities so to

    address the algorithmic biases that are

    going on in there we need to help

    prepare computer scientists and

    programmers to become more aware of

    their biases and actively work towards

    eliminating biases in software hardware

    etc but the authors argue that in order

    to actually do this the core of cs needs

    to focus on justice and civics now in

    previous podcast episodes i talked about

    different images of curricula and

    curricular structures and one of them is

    curriculum as an agenda for social

    reconstruction so in this case i would

    argue that what this paper is forwarding

    is that computer science as a field and

    curricula should be an agenda for social

    reconstruction now here's a quote from

    page one that really resonates with me

    reminds me of a paper that i co-authored

    with kathy benedict and it talks about

    neoliberal influence on music technology

    and how educators and students musicians

    etc can actually subvert that neoliberal

    influence by engaging in

    software and hardware modification and

    creation practices using computer

    science concepts and practices and

    whatnot so i'll include a link to that

    in the show notes but i'll also just go

    ahead and do an unpacking scholarship

    episode on this in a couple weeks

    because it's got some really interesting

    points in there i do say so myself that

    relates to this particular paper alright

    so here's a final couple sentences from

    the end of the introduction that really

    summarizes kind of like the main point

    so quote we believe that computer

    science has many possible benefits

    however we also believe that structural

    injustices exist in society and

    technology and that being a good coder

    means understanding social context and

    the civic responsibility of coders to

    work toward more just futures the aim of

    this work is to call attention to the

    dangers harms and downsides of cs as it

    is currently taught end quote from page

    two and that is a really important thing

    to consider i've noticed a tendency with

    some educators who are

    very passionate about whatever subject

    area or domain they are teaching that

    some educators only present it within a

    positive light and a lot of the

    discourse around computer science

    education is like hey here are all these

    unmet jobs hey here's a way that you can

    get out of poverty by learning some

    concepts and practices or hey computer

    science allows you to express yourself

    where computational thinking can be used

    with everything even though i disagree

    with that etc so it's all it's like

    positive like look at all this great

    things that computer science can do and

    while yes that is good to consider and

    good to promote and it's great for

    advocacy work we also as a field really

    need to kind of sit down and grapple

    with some of the problems with computer

    science education so one of the larger

    problems that i really appreciate that

    the authors mention in here is the

    neoliberal influence on computer science

    education so here's a quote from page

    two quote the focus on broadening

    participation in computer science is

    often driven by economics and the need

    for enough people with computing

    knowledge to meet the demand for

    computing jobs the predominant discourse

    maintains that women and people of color

    have been shut out of a prestigious and

    economically impactful career path one

    that might lead to financial success and

    a life-changing shift in socioeconomic

    status researchers often hypothesize the

    causes of underrepresentation in stem

    careers were due to a leaky pipeline and

    lack of access to stem education in

    response to this criticism government

    industry and non-profit organizations

    have spent millions of dollars with the

    aim to increase representation within cs

    and the cs pipeline end quote and a

    little bit further down quote however we

    also see the above pipeline argument as

    grounded in a problematic assumption

    that a career in cs is fundamentally

    good and perhaps is also a way out of

    poverty all of these intersecting

    assumptions are tinged with the deficit

    notions of systemically minoritized

    groups an overly opportunistic approach

    to structural racism and patriarchy

    within the field of cs and neoliberal

    notions of production and wealth end

    quote both of those quotes are from page

    two so the authors go on to say that we

    often are measuring growth in the field

    like specifically in the k-12 area by

    looking at ap classes to see oh are the

    elementary and middle school efforts

    increasing the numbers of

    students who are enrolled in ap computer

    science courses at the high school level

    and then we also look at okay of the

    students who are enrolled what are the

    past rates within different demographics

    and whatnot but the authors argue that

    looking at computer science from this

    lens does not consider the systemic

    barriers that different groups of people

    face instead quote it perpetuates the

    meritocracy myth in computer science

    that suggests that access and hard work

    will lead to success in reality the

    opportunities within computer science

    are racialized and gendered in ways that

    the social economic and political

    structures make it possible for some to

    succeed over others this leads us to

    wonder whether the measures of success

    are flawed whether the pedagogies of cs

    are insufficient to teach black and

    brown students and whether these

    traditional measures reinforce

    structural problems within computer

    science we certainly believe that

    increasing representation and success of

    black and brown students is one aspect

    of equity focused computer science

    education however we cannot address

    anti-blackness by simply increasing

    representation in computing given that

    anti-blackness is no glitch and the

    system is accurately rigged we need to

    go beyond broadening participation to

    tackle the design and deployment of

    technologies that disproportionately

    impact black and brown communities and

    reproduce white supremacy

    heteronormativity patriarchy and settler

    colonialism end quote from page two this

    reminds me a lot of the paper that i

    unpacked by scott and elliot so i'll

    include a link to it in the show notes

    it was titled stem diversity and

    inclusion efforts for women of color a

    critique of the new labor system and in

    that particular paper they use

    sharecropping as a metaphor for

    critiquing basically neoliberalism in

    stem and cs education and how we are

    setting up people for failure in jobs by

    saying hey you can get more money and

    you can do this great thing and then

    they go into these jobs and there's

    sexism racism homophobia etc perpetuated

    within the cultures within different

    organizations corporations that employ

    computer scientists programmers so ellie

    and scott are arguing hey we need to not

    just send people into these problematic

    workplaces we also as a field need to

    talk about the problems in these

    workspaces and improve them so the way

    that i kind of read amman and marie's

    paper is so it's like a yes and so the

    authors are arguing hey we need to fix

    these issues in industry and in the

    field and we also need to talk about

    some of the problems in k12 space which

    i really appreciate that they have such

    a critical lens and are willing to look

    at something that they are clearly

    passionate about and problematize it

    because there are some wonderful things

    with computer science but there's also

    some things that are like hey we can't

    sweep this under the rug we really need

    to sit down and talk about this in

    particular quote we need to bring

    criticality to computer science

    education that challenges the way design

    and deployment of technologies harm and

    oppress communities of color and examine

    the role computer science plays in that

    end quote it's from page three so

    because the authors posit to that

    curriculum should examine the role of

    oppression and bias and harm in cs they

    ask questions like quote what does this

    look like at a k-12 level how does the

    field bring critical computer science to

    k-12 classrooms that challenges

    color-blind racism and center

    communities where students live end

    quote from page three those are some

    excellent questions so the next section

    is on the theoretical frame link so the

    way that they are going to look at

    like the field and the discourse and

    whatnot and influences like power on k12

    cs education is using information

    asymmetry which is actually something

    that i hadn't heard of as well as a

    concept of lead user innovation so

    here's a quote from page three quote

    information asymmetry occurs when

    designers bake their biases into the

    design of a technology resulting in a

    product that does not match the needs of

    all users end quote and then a little

    bit further down quote because members

    of the dominant social group designed

    the product the commodities and services

    center the needs of the designers but do

    not serve the needs of marginalized

    people lead user innovation offers one

    way to combat information asymmetry as

    lead user innovators tinker and

    democratize technologies in order to

    make them more just and functional in

    quote also from page three so again this

    really resonates with a paper that i'll

    talk about in two weeks alright so a

    little bit further down on page three

    quote most cs curricula and associated

    testing prioritize technical

    competencies and are designed to

    encourage passing standardized exams to

    meet the needs of the computing industry

    the tech industry is a major founder of

    computer science education organizations

    that lead the design and implementation

    of cs curricula in k-12 schools given

    that technology companies continue to

    cause harm and oppress efforts to

    improve local communities and support

    people of color cs educators need to be

    skeptical of their role in cs curriculum

    and its purpose in k-12 classrooms when

    cs curriculum developers prioritize the

    needs of the industry rather than

    interrogating how computing is used as a

    tool for repression it creates an

    information asymmetry between curriculum

    developers and teachers and learners end

    quote from page three so then the

    authors go on to say hey we have like

    this culture subconcept within the like

    k12 computer science framework which

    i'll include a link to in the show notes

    if you haven't read it and while it is

    attempting to help students and teachers

    explore some of the problems in

    technology the authors argue that it

    also could be problematic some of these

    standards by not exploring how

    individual companies are exploiting

    workers or surveilling them or impacting

    local economies etc right so the next

    section is titled community criticality

    and citizenship within cs classrooms so

    there are subsections in here for each

    of those three particular topics which

    they present as kind of like a response

    to these problems so they're not just

    like hey here are these problems what do

    we do about it they're saying hey here

    are these problems and here are three

    potential ways that we can address some

    of these issues as a field which i

    appreciate a lot of critical discourse

    studies that i have read like especially

    in music education there's this tendency

    to be like hey this thing is bad it's

    really bad like super bad but i'm not

    gonna tell you how we might be able to

    improve it just figure it out and that i

    think is kind of problematic it's kind

    of like when you go on twitter and you

    just see

    all the bad stuff going on and you just

    gotta keep on swiping that's what it

    feels like in academia it's like hey

    there's all this really bad stuff and

    we're not actually going to engage in

    any kind of conversation about how to

    improve it we're just going to keep

    talking about how bad it is and that's

    just that that's not good it's great to

    point out things that are problematic

    but we also need to you know act upon it

    provide potential solutions etc so i

    really appreciate that the authors did

    that well thank you so here's some

    questions that kind of frame this

    particular section these questions are

    from pages three and page four quote how

    does the field move away from a top-down

    approach to cs education that paints

    computing as a solution to address

    wealth inequality without acknowledging

    the need for structural changes how do

    educators teach computing in ways that

    allow students to use it for personal

    agency and solving community problems

    how do scholars highlight the role of

    computer science in the design of

    technologies that perpetuates existing

    societal hierarchies and inequalities

    how does cs education prepare students

    of computing to focus on justice in

    quote so let's explore some of those

    questions in the first subsection on

    here on community all right so the

    authors would begin by discussing the

    book stuck in the shallow end by

    margolis at all and so in this

    particular introduction for this section

    they're talking about how there is a

    tendency and still is a tendency in the

    field of cs education to focus

    specifically on the concepts and

    practices and not actually focusing on

    individual student needs so this is

    top-down approach that is often driven

    by industry that is saying hey we have

    these jobs we need people to fill them

    let's recruit from within high school in

    particular and maybe even create some

    programs that help funnel into or build

    up the high school program which will

    eventually lead to more workers who can

    fill these jobs so because it's driven

    by

    corporate influence and often money from

    corporations the interests being served

    are the corporations interests rather

    than the students in the schools and

    this can create some problems however

    there have been some teachers who have

    been able to address some of the

    information asymmetry by challenging

    some of these biases and problems baked

    into like curriculum or standards etc

    and again the authors would argue that

    the teachers who are going against this

    information asymmetry are engaging in

    lead user innovation when they are

    engaging in cs through civic engagement

    that impacts local communities or

    individuals within the classroom one way

    that some teachers in cs have engaged in

    lead user innovation is through

    culturally responsive computing which

    quote draws in students vernacular

    culture such as music graffiti etc into

    the classroom to provide students a

    sense of ownership of their own learning

    in quote and a little bit further down

    they suggest that culturally responsive

    computing quote requires cs educators

    cultural experts and technologists to

    collaborate to develop their own

    competencies together so that their

    intersecting expertise would lead to a

    deeper multi-directional culturally

    responsive computing engagements

    connecting academic pursuits of cultural

    wealth for example hair salons and

    technological wealth for example

    computer science departments end quote

    from page four but if we're going to

    engage in culturally responsive

    computing practices we need to actually

    address

    how it's going to be implemented in the

    classroom by looking at some of the

    biases that teachers might have

    towards minoritized groups so some of

    these biases might be

    like oh this particular demographic or

    type of student is uninterested in

    technology or computer science or

    whatever or

    there's a lack of family and peer

    support for pursuing this degree so i

    should focus on other students or well

    they're not really going to have the

    math and science backgrounds to be able

    to do this all of these are problematic

    assumptions that some educators might

    have around computer science so we need

    to address those so the kpoor center

    released a framework that kind of talks

    about three different approaches that

    you can use to

    unpack some of these biases quote one

    explore and reflect upon their own

    identities power and privilege two honor

    a firm and use students intersectional

    identities within their classroom and

    three intentionally recruit students

    from marginalized groups end quote i did

    an unpacking scholarship episode on this

    particular framework i highly recommend

    taking a look at that whether it's

    listening to the episode or actually

    reading the framework itself so i'll

    include a link to that in the show notes

    all right so for this particular

    subsection the community little summary

    right here is

    we need to focus not just on concepts

    and practices we also need to focus on

    the community within the classes and the

    schools that we work in all of them not

    just certain demographics but all

    demographics and then also think about

    how we can expand beyond that to have a

    positive impact on the local communities

    in the schools that we work so not just

    focusing on concepts and practices but

    also thinking on impact to individuals

    and groups the next subsection is on

    criticality so the authors argue that we

    need to address some of the biases

    embedded within the design of technology

    and the processes used to create those

    technologies and this is technology

    broadly speaking so for example one form

    of technology might be facial

    recognition or even just like automatic

    soap dispensers and whether or not they

    detect darker skin tones but then also

    technologies such as like loans for

    banks housing etc and then a little bit

    further down on page five the authors

    argue that quote current curriculum

    focuses on learning about computing and

    developing technical competencies

    however there is no discussion of how cs

    contributes to maintaining and

    perpetuating existing social hierarchies

    white supremacism and racism as such

    there is information asymmetry between

    the curriculum that focuses on preparing

    students for a computing job and the

    importance of understanding and

    challenging the role of cs and causing

    harm end quote a little bit further down

    the authors cite some others like amy co

    who was interviewed on this podcast and

    it was a phenomenal interview so amy and

    colleagues quote argue that we need to

    challenge the idea that software is

    always right value neutral and we will

    solve all our problems rather they

    suggest that educators must replace

    these conceptions with the reality that

    software is often wrong software always

    embeds its creators values and biases

    and software can only solve some

    problems in many cases creates new ones

    end quote so whether we're talking about

    a program or a.i or some hardware or

    whatever it is important for educators

    and students to consider the harmful

    consequences that might be baked into

    those different

    technologies like a very simple example

    is scissors if you're right-handed and

    you use scissors that are for

    right-handed people it'll work really

    well and then if you switch it over to

    your left hand like if you know you're

    left-handed it won't cut and if you

    don't believe me try it well that's just

    one example the authors cited the intro

    many others that have led to false

    arrests of people because the biases

    built into technology and speaking of

    biases the authors go on to talk about

    three different biases in relation to

    data generation and then two biases

    during a model stage so for data

    generation there are historical

    representation and measurement biases

    and then for the model stage there are

    evaluation and aggregation biases so i'm

    going to read this quote from pages 5

    and 6 which i think are important for

    kind of understanding different types of

    biases that do exist quote historical

    bias happens when data is measured and

    sampled in ways that reflect existing

    biases in a world such as when zip codes

    are used to decide mortgage rates which

    are known to have biases due to

    redlining representation bias occurs

    when the development sample

    underrepresents parts of the population

    such as when the facial recognition

    technology does not include enough

    people with dark skin measurement bias

    occurs when proxies are used to measure

    constructs that are hard to measure such

    as when recidivism softwares use

    someone's address as measures of

    riskiness when we know that communities

    of color are highly policed aggregation

    bias happens when a one-size-fits-all

    model does not account for meaningful

    characteristics and differences between

    the subgroups in the population end

    quote so a little bit further down on

    page six the authors cite a paper by

    joanna good at all which if you haven't

    listened to the interview that i did

    with joanna i highly recommend it i'll

    include a link to that in the show notes

    but in this they mentioned four

    different types of biases related to

    color blindness which is like saying oh

    i don't see race i don't see color and

    how that's problematic because it's like

    well i you're probably saying that with

    saying like oh well i'm not racist but

    what that's ignoring is a lot of

    contexts and hegemonic influences that

    are disproportionately affecting people

    of color in a way that might come across

    as

    kind of sweeping a problem under the rug

    and just kind of ignoring it so here are

    four ways that some computer science

    teachers were actually engaging in

    colorblind approaches

    likely unintentionally so one was that

    they felt that the lack of success or

    participation in cs was due to

    these students themselves and their

    families the second one was engaging in

    discourse that ignored race altogether

    the third approach was that teachers

    would engage in evasive discourse by

    saying hey there's all these outside

    barriers outside of my control that i

    can't really work with whether it's like

    school counselors

    deciding who participates in cs etc and

    then the fourth colorblind approach that

    some teachers used was just being silent

    which to be completely candid is a

    category that i fell into it wasn't an

    area of expertise of mine that i felt

    knowledgeable enough to

    engage in conversations on and i saw

    that it led to a bunch of problematic

    conversations with like family members

    and colleagues etc and i quite frankly

    avoid politics because it's just is

    emotionally and mentally draining but i

    realized that this silence that i was

    engaging in could implicitly come across

    as

    being complacent with how things are and

    so i made a very intentional effort of

    being more public about my thoughts on

    this and engaging in conversation that i

    knew would lead to conflict when people

    were saying hopefully unintentionally

    some racist or problematic things and so

    you may have noticed in the podcast if

    you go all the way back to the i can't

    breathe episode from that point on it

    was much more overt much more public

    about here are my perspectives on this

    i'm likely still saying things that are

    problematic but i want people to know

    that i am open to discussing them and

    learning about them and working through

    them because i don't want to have biases

    that are going unchecked etc so the

    reason why i'm sharing this and trying

    to be as candid as i can is because i

    want anyone who's listening to this who

    might be

    hesitant about it to know that i was

    there too and i've been

    very vocal about equity issues in cs

    education just list like if you go to

    the tags in the show notes and look at

    the equity tags there are a ton of

    podcasts whether it's a solo episode

    like this one or interviews with guests

    and multiple guests and we have some

    wonderful conversations around equity

    that i wish the field was having more of

    so to summarize the rant it's hey yes it

    can be scary to talk about some things

    especially when cancelled culture is

    rampant but we need to find ways to

    engage in these conversations even if

    they're uncomfortable just remember that

    silence is a privilege i as a white

    individual had the opportunity to

    disengage from these conversations

    around racism and whatnot because i was

    not being racially profiled whereas my

    black and brown friends did not have

    that privilege to say hey this is

    causing me too much stress i don't want

    to engage in this conversation because

    they were drawn into it whether they

    wanted to or not because of racism bias

    etc and if you decide that you want to

    explore this more again there's a ton of

    resources in the different show notes

    for the different podcasts and different

    topics if you want to learn more about

    racism and anti-racist practices like

    the i can't breathe episode has a ton of

    resources to take a look at so i'll link

    to that in the show notes now near the

    end of this particular subsection the

    authors argue that to actually

    accomplish this quote we need to move

    away from training cs teachers through a

    one-week professional development model

    which leads to teachers with limited

    computing knowledge and experience these

    teachers then do not have the adequate

    knowledge or agency to bring a critical

    lens into cs education in summary we

    cannot just focus on everyone learning

    to code to drive profits for

    capitalistic institutions instead we

    need people learning to code in ways

    that also push them to think more

    critically about software technology and

    design and that prepare them to help

    reshape technology in service of human

    liberation and ecological sustainability

    a critical perspective will lead

    students to question the harmful effects

    of technologies and dismantle them if

    needed end quote from page six that is a

    very important quote and kind of

    perfectly summarizes the point of this

    subsection on criticality which is

    basically saying hey even if you love it

    we really need to engage in

    conversations that problematizes

    systemic barriers etc alright so the

    final subsection within this particular

    area of the paper is on citizenship and

    so in this section they are arguing that

    we need to move away from just focusing

    on technical skills and focus on helping

    students become good citizens and so

    they cite some scholarship that says

    that computer science majors are

    actually don't feel like their roles

    foster justice or solve global problems

    or improve lives etc so this whole

    section is basically arguing hey we need

    to focus not just on the technology but

    also the humanity and the impact of that

    technology on humanity so this

    particular section was interesting

    because the way that it was framed it

    was saying we need to bring the

    humanities into cs which is interesting

    to me because a lot of the discourse

    around computational thinking in

    particular is all about putting

    computational thinking or cs into other

    disciplines so it finally like flips

    that narrative and says hey we can learn

    a lot from other subject areas which is

    something that i've been like arguing in

    many of these unpacking scholarship

    episodes and even interviews or talk

    about like one of the most valuable

    things i've done is read outside of the

    field it literally led to me being able

    to switch to a different field because i

    was reading outside of music education

    so much that i was able to jump into

    computer science education because i

    have this background in multiple subject

    areas in different areas of expertise it

    has allowed me to synthesize different

    ideas that are not discussed within each

    domain like when i'm speaking music

    educators i can talk about things that

    are common practice in computer science

    that are rarely discussed for music

    education and vice versa so

    this really resonates with me in terms

    of looking into other domains like they

    mentioned civics instruction in cs and

    how we could learn from civics teachers

    social studies teachers etc to figure

    out how to bring in topics that are

    current

    into the content that we are learning so

    here's a quote from page seven quote

    this requires curriculum standards that

    focus on humanities and citizenship

    encouraging cs students as civic

    understanding when developing

    technologies and challenging

    techno-solutionist understandings of

    technology which failed to consider

    systemic oppression end quote so the

    authors actually suggest on page seven

    that hey we need to revise standards to

    focus on these critical citizenship

    approaches so here's another quote from

    page seven quote taking cues from the

    fields of social studies which works

    toward participatory citizenship in

    democracy and citizen science advocates

    who aim toward participation

    democratization justice and equity

    through community-based knowledge we

    propose cs pedagogy oriented toward

    inquiry in action end quote that to me

    can come from like a very

    student-centered approach in terms of

    what are you interested in learning more

    about what do you wonder about how can

    we explore that in your own learning but

    then the second word is the action of

    okay how can we actually do something

    about this how can we improve things if

    we notice some biases all right let's

    try and actively address those biases

    and if we can't do it let's find the

    people who can rather than just learning

    concepts for the sake of learning

    concepts let's do something with our

    understandings so at the very end of

    this section on citizenship there are

    four suggestions in here in terms of

    like students working with their

    communities to figure out a community

    challenge students partnering with their

    communities as like citizen scientists

    to gather some data students then

    partnering with communities to

    co-develop solutions to these identified

    problems and then students actually

    taking some kind of informed action so

    you can read more about that on page

    eight alright so this paper ends with a

    very short conclusion this is only about

    eight pages long but again i highlighted

    more than i did not so i had to leave so

    much out of this i highly recommend

    going and reading this particular paper

    i've already cited it for an upcoming

    publication and it just came out like a

    week or two ago at the end of all these

    unpacking scholarship episodes i'd like

    to talk about some lingering questions

    or thoughts that i had when i read

    through the paper so one of them is how

    might we integrate ethical design

    principles into learning cs content so

    there's this tendency to take like this

    add-on justice approach where it's like

    oh well we've got our normal content so

    let's just do like an additional unit

    that's specifically on social justice or

    equity or ethics or whatever but instead

    of doing like a unit or a class on

    ethics how could we embed or integrate

    ethical design principles into learning

    of cs content so if this paper resonated

    with you and you're like yeah i want to

    focus on this more i want to engage in

    more practices that dismantle

    systemic barriers of oppression etc

    awesome find some way that you can do

    this in each one of the projects rather

    than making a standalone project that is

    like okay now we're gonna do our bias

    project and then we'll get back to our

    regular scheduled content whatever i

    don't really have a good answer to how

    you might integrate it and the reason

    why is because it just depends on what

    you're learning like an approach that i

    might use in an ap class with an

    assigned curriculum might be different

    than an approach that i would use in the

    interest driven class that i previously

    facilitated where students could pick

    multiple programming languages and

    platforms etc to create projects that

    were interesting to them we could frame

    it around questions that solve real

    world problems or address biases etc

    however this leads to a question that i

    often get when i read through stuff like

    this even though this heavily resonates

    with me i

    wonder when might a focus on one image

    of curriculum within a field or domain

    become a form of colonization and i

    don't have a good answer this i've been

    asking this for quite some time but to

    clarify in case you haven't heard the

    podcasts that i did on images of

    curriculum so curricula can be conceived

    of as the content or subject matter or

    maybe it's a program to plan activities

    or intended learning outcomes it could

    be a form of cultural reproduction or an

    experience or a set of discrete tasks

    and concepts as carrer which i talk

    about in the podcast on that if you

    don't you're not familiar with that or

    it could be conceived of as an agenda

    for social reconstruction among many

    other things i would argue that the

    authors are suggesting that all cs

    curricula and pedagogy should be an

    agenda for social reconstruction and

    while i agree that we could certainly do

    that and this would certainly help out

    society i also wonder is this a form of

    colonizing axiologies and epistemologies

    colonizing values or ways of learning or

    knowing or understanding and this

    question is not posed as a critique of

    the authors because again i agree with

    what they're saying it's just me

    thinking out loud so an example that i

    came up with for this is i like to cook

    if the recipe were considered to be like

    a lesson or a curriculum i would say

    that most recipes are discrete tasks and

    concepts or program plan activities or

    even like intended edible outcomes just

    kind of play with rephrasing the images

    of curriculum however if a recipe were

    viewed as an agenda for social

    reconstruction then it might be a recipe

    that teaches you all about the harm done

    through the spice trade but that might

    not match the interest of somebody who

    is just trying to make some delicious

    waffles so while i agree that curricula

    can and should be an agenda for social

    reconstruction i just don't know if that

    should be that in all use cases again i

    think we could embed it throughout so

    much of what we do but i just imagine

    that there are some use cases i think

    where maybe that's not what people want

    i don't know though an example that i

    can think of is when i was very

    depressed i wanted to

    attend music classes because it took my

    mind off of the societal issues that

    were going on that were exacerbating my

    depression and suicidality at the time

    so if i instead attended a music class

    where it was forced to confront societal

    issues within the medium of music i

    don't know if that would have helped me

    at that time and it may have turned me

    away from music which i ended up

    pursuing for multiple degrees so i'm

    sharing this publicly to say like while

    i agree with it i wonder what the

    pushback would be if the entire field

    were to flip over to this would it then

    push some people away from the field who

    are more interested in other images of

    curriculum than

    just engaging in social reconstruction

    but i don't know i am a fan of

    multi-perspectivalism i spoke about this

    in the interview with mark gustile that

    i did which was a great interview i

    recommend listening to that i've also

    talked about it in the unpacking

    scholarship episode i did on gilsky's

    concept of methodology which is

    basically like when you blindly follow a

    method at the exclusion of all others so

    like if you're

    a constructionist basically ignoring

    constructivism or even behaviorism or

    whatever like other ways of knowing and

    learning for myself being a

    multi-perspectivalist i think that there

    are many different approaches that are

    appropriate for different contexts and

    even for different individuals anyways i

    enjoyed this paper i recommend taking a

    look at it and i'm going to talk about

    another paper that i co-authored in two

    weeks so stay tuned for that and also

    stay tuned next week for an interview

    but until then i hope you're all staying

    safe and are having a wonderful week


Abstract

“The unexamined power and prejudice embedded within technologies and societies has led to direct harm to individuals of color, minoritized groups, and the US ideal of a multi-racial democracy. Rather than an accident of AI or a “glitch” of the system, these inequities highlight the invisible and oppressive architecture – a “New Jim Code” (Benjamin, 2019) – encoded into the bones of the technology. At the same time, computer science education has grown considerably over the last decade. We ask how can educators address embedded injustice within the K-12 CS education? Using information asymmetry (Hippel, 2005) as a conceptual framing, we argue for the need to address racialized and patriarchal biases through curricular design and teaching in CS. We argue for a participatory and community centered approach to CS curricula which facilitates community co-designed CS, centers criticality, and fosters civic education within CS.”


My One Sentence Summary

This article articulates some biases in CS curricular design and pedagogy, then provides three suggestions for teaching CS as an agenda for social reconstruction.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • How might we integrate ethical design principles into learning CS content?

  • When might a focus on one image of curriculum within a field or domain become a form of colonization?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

  • Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode

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