Using a Research-Practice Partnership to Bolster Computer Science Education: Challenges and Opportunities for Equity

• In Event: 47.027 - CS for All: An Intersectional Approach to Unpacking Equity in Computer Science Education

Abstract

This poster describes a research-practice partnership (RPP) that addresses equity in computer science (CS) education, defined as reducing the disparity in students’ access to quality opportunities and ongoing support. The purpose is to show how efforts to broaden participation must work within institutional contexts that have other demands and priorities. While most school districts welcome time-limited classes or events, these tend to attract students that are already interested or have access to CS and are less likely to create CS for All. Reducing inequities requires the integration of CS into existing educational practices and priorities. It also requires critical reflection on implementation, including attention to the preferences as well as the political goals of key stakeholders, including teachers, parents, students, and industry (Vakil, 2018). Our CS for All effort focuses on 3rd-8th grade students in a small, California school district where the student population is 38% Hispanic/Latino and 25% English learners, with 35% eligible for free/reduced lunch. The RPP includes the school district, a non-profit research organization, and a local education foundation.

We use the conceptual framework of absorptive capacity (Farrell & Coburn, 2017) to understand the conditions under which institutional changes can be made. “A district’s absorptive capacity is its ability to recognize the value of new information, assimilate it, and apply it in novel ways” (Farrell & Coburn, 2017, p. 141). In this framework, the organizational features that contribute to absorptive capacity include prior knowledge and expertise, communication pathways, and strategic knowledge leadership. The needed qualities of the external partners are to provide guidance that is clear and adds value, to be flexible and adaptive, and to align norms and work practices.

A narrative ethnography analytic approach (Gubrium & Holstein, 2009) is used to describe the organizational features of the school district, as well as the qualities of both the research team and education foundation. Data come from the interactions between researchers, teachers, district administrators, and representatives from the education foundation. Specifically, text from meeting notes, emails, and conversations was analyzed along with notes generated using field-based methods of ethnography.  A critical ethnographic approach is used to reflect on the narrative produced and the interpretation aligned with it (Carspecken, 2013), and to examine how different perspectives across the RPP were identified and negotiated.

Our results suggest that one of the challenges is the different expectations about pace  and the impact of that on equity. School districts are organizations that move slowly as a way to protect themselves from ongoing change (Cohen & Mehta, 2017). Our data suggest that implementing CS without embedding it in research and district practices, or getting buy-in from teachers and parents, can, in some cases, turn students and teachers off to CS. On the other hand, delays in implementation run the risk of reinforcing the status quo, which are currently inequitable. Our poster will convey how the RPP has grappled with the identification of varying and sometimes conflicting perspectives on pacing, and what those mean for a broader pursuit of equity in CS education.

Authors

• Jill Denner, Education, Training, and Research Associates

• Emily Joyce Kaseno Green, ETR Associates