Personal vs. Professional Authenticity in Cybersecurity and Computing Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 2:15 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Authentic Engagement: Culturally Sustaining Approaches to Values-Driven STEM Education

Abstract

In response to AERA's 2026 theme of "unforgetting histories and imagining futures," we integrate sociocultural theories to propose a cybersecurity education framework grounded in personal authenticity, expansive framing, and culturally sustaining pedagogy. Drawing on an online course for K–12 network administrators, an imagined undergraduate curriculum, theoretical sources, and a literature review, we present five principles for supporting inclusive, generative cybersecurity learning that transfers readily and widely. We foreground how revisiting histories of exclusion from professional authenticity norms and curricular erasures can inform future-forward instructional design that centers learner identity and agency. Our contribution fosters collective re-imagination: a scholarly vision for culturally relevant, future-ready cybersecurity education that sustains cultural wealth, disrupts inequities, and propels learners toward civic and professional flourishing.

Authors

• Daniel T. Hickey, Indiana University

• Ronald Kantor, Kantor Consulting