Research as Ceremony: Contemplative Inquiry and Indigenous Knowledge

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

Abstract

Objectives: Despite aggressive efforts from a wide range of initiatives the number of women of color have not increased at the same rate as their white peers. The few who complete their degrees and reach the computing workforce are leaving. Their world visions are in conflict with that of the dominant-male colleagues. There is a need for women of color to see themselves as intellectual contributors to society within the curriculum. Expanding on Eglash’s groundbreaking work on culturally responsive curriculum and ethnomathematics, ACS intends to research students’ multiple identities as these relate to AKS and sustainable computing. This is done to create CSE curriculum that ensures women of color’s lived world experiences are endogenous. Moreover, ACS advocates for the need of sustainable computing that honors both the earth and ancestral knowledge systems.

Significance:
To effectively address the issue of diversity in computing, ACS will: 1) Ascertain how ancestral knowledges might lead the discipline of CSE towards a more inclusive environment in relation to theory, methods, learning and assessments, and subsequently, how such knowledges might inform faculty and students to work towards a sustainable future. 2) Investigate in what ways students of color considering CSE as a discipline of study might respond to ancestral knowledge and nurture positive academic and personal identities by building self-efficacy and maintaining a sense of belonging in CSE. 3) Explore how the integration of Ancestral Knowledges serves as epistemological and axiological foundations for sustainable computing. The broadening of CSE as a discipline to include ancestral knowledges has the potential to raise distinct questions not otherwise considered.

We intend to invite values centered around (a) transformative justice in the advancement of humanity, (b) the ethical handling and disposal of e-waste, (c)the use of computer science to solve some of today’s most pressing problems and inequities through the use of computing for healing, justice, and sustainability. To effectively address the issue of diversity in computing.

Methods
A focus group methodology with a contemplative approach. Contemplative approaches have been used by Indigenous peoples around the world, but are only somewhat recently being incorporated in the objectivist, western educational model, as scholars and educators themselves respond to the call for an education that is integrated and steeped in values that sustain the planet and humanity.

Preliminary Findings
Our participants began to engage as intellectual contributors and the ancestral computing network. The research team and participants continue to create a framework with the findings that includes multiple dimensions of humanity, sustainability and indigenous knowledges which is counter to the traditional approaches to teaching and learning computer science.

Conference Theme Connection: ACS will stop relegating ancestral knowledge and wisdom to the margins of CSE, but instead contribute to new epistemologies and axiologies by placing these marginalized knowledge front and center. These habits of mind are specifically intended to advance education systems for all by troubling the notions associated with western education systems that lack recognition of theories and practices that center ancestral knowledge.

Authors

• Cueponcaxochitl D. Moreno Sandoval, California State University - Stanislaus

• Michelle C Chatman, University of the District of Columbia