77.010 - Digital Equity and Computer Science for All: Research Addressing the Normative, Political, Technical, and Pedagogical Dimensions of School Reform

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

The past five years has seen a tremendous uptick in the development and deployment of digital learning technologies and computer science education, with schools joining forces with universities, non-profit institutions, and technology companies to adopt computer science learning standards and prepare educators to teach stand-alone courses. Simultaneously, state- and national support for computer science education has been sweeping and visible as multiple governors and educational leaders across the globe have publicly supported policies to make computer science coursework count towards graduation in secondary schools. Yet, while participation numbers have almost doubled in recent years, the rates of students of color and girls participating in advanced coursework remains small and lower than any other subject area. Research has shown that educator belief systems, coupled with structural disparities in opportunities to learn computer science, operate to differentiate access to computing knowledge between and within schools (Goode, Flapan, & Margolis; 2017; Margolis, Estrella, Holme, Goode, & Nao, 2017). To address these inequities in this high-status knowledge area, President Obama launched the “CS for All” initiative in 2016 to broaden participation in computing. This pronounced federal endorsement, coupled with grassroots support from teachers and local organizations, has propelled a national movement to increase equitable access to computer science.

Yet while these early years of the CS for All movement demonstrate how efforts are being made to work across the siloes of educational research, the school structures, nonprofit organizations, political bodies, and large corporations, it is still unclear how data-rich narratives can be best used to maintain equity at the center of the movement. As more resources are ported online, the need to better understand the role of technology in varied educational and social contexts has become more urgent (Tierney, Corwin & Ochsner, 2018). If youth lack access to tech tools and high quality tech instruction, we run the risk of exacerbating inequitable access to learning instead of improving access to resources via scalable low-cost means (i.e. online). As such, this symposium will bring together a panel to critically and interactively examine how research can inform the current groundswell of educational policies and practices that supports inclusive, challenging, and culturally responsive computer science education for all students. The panelists include educational researchers studying formal and informal learning spaces in computer science, a program officer with the National Science foundation, a non-profit leader and former computer science leader in a large urban school district, and a former student of an early effort to bring equitable computer science to high schools. The panelists will draw from their diverse set of experiences and perspectives across their work in schools, districts, the federal government, and non-profit institutions to describe how school reform policies can broaden participation in K-12 computer science. The education research featured in this panel will reflect a multitude of disciplinary approaches and mixed research methods that reflect the wide range of projects across computer science education.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Joanna Goode, University of Oregon

Participants

• Zoe Corwin, University of Southern California

• Janice Cuny, National Science Foundation

• Frieda McAlear, Kapor Center for Social Impact

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

• Abril Vela, Chicago Public Schools

• Brenda Wilkerson, Anita Borg Institute