Research as Ceremony: Disrupting Colonial Narratives via the Ancestral Computing Network

• In Event: Research as Ceremony: Cultivating Ancestral Knowledge in Computer Science Education

Abstract

Objectives: The Ancestral Computing Network aims to shift the narrative and approach to computing education (CE). The purpose of this study is to engage in a collaborative process to establish an ancestral computing network. The researchers seek to understand ancestral knowledge systems and investigate how students’ multiple identities, self-efficacy, a sense of belonging, relationship with the earth, and sustainable computing interact with learning computing. Representation from the Ancestral Computing Network includes faculty from four different regions of the US.

Rationale: The broadening of computer science as a discipline to include ancestral knowledge may contribute to the body of knowledge and point out the gaps in the field for researchers, families, communities, and practitioners.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework:
The research project considers how computer science education influences students’ multidimensional identities for the purpose of building a new framework for teaching computational thinking grounded in ancestral knowledge, liberation, healing, and broad social and environmental sustainability. The purpose of this study is to construct a framework for understanding how CE intersects with ancestral knowledge systems for students of color who are underrepresented in the field. This project seeks not only to challenge the content, and process of CE, but also to interrogate the values that are embedded in the instruction of CE and computation thinking. As such, we aim to question the extent to which the discipline of computer science itself is driven by individualist aims to promote capitalism and consumerism.

Methods
This study is multi-dimensional as we not only study ourselves and our practices, our processes, and the new knowledge obtained about what it means to engage in research that is asset-based where under-represented groups are positively positioned. The team recognizes self-study as a relevant theoretical framework for developing, implementing and analyzing learning CE. Collaborative research is a mode of scholarly inquiry in which researchers examine their beliefs and actions within the context of their work and explore methodological questions. We reflect upon and share what we learned from our research team meetings while simultaneously studying how under-represented groups learn computing. For example we 1) ascertain how ancestral knowledge might contribute to a more inclusive CE, 2) investigate how students of color from under-represented groups in CE might consider CE as a discipline, and 3) how students of color from under-represented groups might respond to an ancestral knowledge approach to CE and develop positive academic and personal identities.

Results
Preliminary results show that ancestral knowledge is shifting the thinking of the participants. Once they uncovered the ways in which their ancestral knowledge intersects with CE and how these Indigenous traditions and knowledges impacted and shaped CE. As the research team documented their experiences, they found ways to disrupt traditional approaches to teaching and researching CE.

Conference Theme Connection: The investigation informs the research on increasing the numbers of students of color in CE, and presenting opportunities and strategies for equity in education pathways. There is a social responsibility to enact change in ways that are inclusive and that broaden education pipelines.

Authors

• Joseph F. Carroll-Miranda, University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras

• April Lindala, Northern Michigan University