Identity as Interface

• In Event: Humanizing Computer Science Education: Addressing Critical Issues for K–12 Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Making computer science education more just and equitable requires reconceptualizing the constructs which we call learning (Kafai, Proctor, & Lui, 2019). Cognitive constructs such as skills and knowledge offer the appealing simplicity of objectivity, but they obscure some of the structures underlying student achievement such as interest, prior experience, availability of mentors, and a receptive community. In contrast, a practice-based framing of learning centers the processes by which learners become computer scientists. In this framing, identity is a central outcome of learning. A practice theory of identity (Holland, 1997) makes it easier to ask critical questions such as who gets to define what counts as computer science and what it means, to individuals, to participate in computer science as it is understood in their communities (Gresalfi & Hand, 2019).
This conceptual paper develops the idea of identity as interface, synthesizing existing concepts of identity in educational research (Moje & Luke, 2009) and technical senses of ‘interface’ from computer science. Holland (1997) describes identity as an interface “between the social and embodied sources of the self,” a boundary mediating one’s sense of self on the inside and available subject positions on the outside (p. 182). In computer science, an interface is a defined boundary of a system, defining the protocols of interaction (Hookway, 2014). When a user interface provides access to a digital world, as in social media, users’ identities and relationships are figured in particular ways. The user interface is the site of identity authorship as well as identity-related oppression.
Identity as interface centers several under-explored areas of computer science education research. In exploring how computer science education might support critical computational literacies (Lee & Soep, 2016; Proctor, 2020), identity/interface is the boundary between social practice and the infrastructure “beneath the screen” (Lynch, 2019). Understanding how the interface is implemented in code (and the decisions involved in deciding what will be permitted, encouraged, and figured in particular ways) may transform the possibilities of identity authorship in digital worlds. Prior research on youth identity practices in online worlds (e.g. Ito, 2010) has focused on the outer surface of identity. How does identity authorship in online worlds transform the inside of identity, one’s sense of embodiment or the kind of self one desires to have? (Butler, 1997)
If our goal is ‘humanizing computer science,’ it might seem that drawing structural similarities between learners and machines is moving in the wrong direction. However, we live in technosocial worlds mediated and figured by agentic digital interfaces. Without a theoretical account of the role of computational interfaces, as medium and often as participant in social practice, we cannot adequately study these phenomena. New forms of power and oppression, based in surveillance of interface behavior and control over resulting identities, threaten our “right to the future tense” (Zuboff, 2019). Identity as interface helps articulate the structure of these threats and may serve as the basis for a critical pedagogical response.

Author

• Chris Proctor, University of Buffalo (SUNY)