Centering Youth Perspectives on Agency in CS Education

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

Abstract

The CS for All movement has captured the interest of school districts, nonprofits, industry, and government leaders across the US, in recognition of the role Computer Science (CS) plays in our youth’s future academic and career pathways. Yet as CS for All programs—such as Exploring Computer Science or Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles—scale nationwide, we must ensure that the movement does not unwittingly reinscribe current inequities in public education that have resulted in differential access to quality educators, curricula, academic expectations, etc. for our females, youth of color, immigrants, and rural students (Bobb, 2018; Margolis et al., 2008).

In order to keep equity at the center, our project seeks to understand how youth engagement, agency, and identity are being impacted, if at all, by efforts to broaden their participation in CS. Going beyond the “numbers” approach, we define equity as attending to the funds of knowledge and perspectives youth bring to their CS learning experiences, amplifying historically underrepresented youth’s visions of what CS education can and should be, that can inform the CS for All movement.

Guided by sociocultural theories, this study understands learning as occurring through social activity influenced by cultural-historical artifacts (e.g., language, tools, etc.) mediating our interactions with each other and the world (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, del Rio, & Alvarez, 1995). As such, in order to make sense of student agency, engagement, and identity in relation to CS, our research methods attend to individual learning in relation to interactions between people, with artifacts, and in the larger historical/cultural contexts of group activity in the classroom (Gutiérrez & Penuel, 2014). We define “agency” in terms of the ways students come to author and enact themselves in relation to their intentions to cause change in their own lives or those of others (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010; Basu, 2008). “Identity” is understood in terms of youth’s: 1) access to a learning domain and the skills/concepts of that domain; 2) roles and responsibilities taken on in a shared space; and 3) opportunities to express oneself and make contributions to a setting in which one feels valued (Nasir & Hand, 2008, p. 148).

Our methods involve a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP)—a sustained, mutualistic collaboration across researchers and educators producing original analyses toward the improved use of research in decision making and educational outcomes (Coburn, Penuel, & Geil, 2013; Tseng, 2012)—collecting ethnographic case studies of 15 underrepresented youth’s CS learning experiences across three focal classrooms in a large urban school district. Data sources include weekly observation field notes, photos/videos, interviews, and student pre-/post-surveys that have been jointly analyzed with focal classroom educators in the RPP.

Findings describe the various ways that youth see their current and future selves in relation to CS, while exploring the salience of culturally responsive pedagogy in relation to youth identity and agency. The ways our project crosses the boundaries of teaching and research toward increasing our effort’s impact and relevance to equity efforts in the CS for All movement are also shared.

Authors

• Jean J. Ryoo, University of California - Los Angeles

• Jane S. Margolis, University of California - Los Angeles

• Cynthia Estrada, University of California - Los Angeles

• Tiera Tanksley, University of Southern California

• Dawn Guest-Johnson