Convivencia to guide new futures in computing education: Bringing opportunities to Los Angeles

• In Event: Historicizing Los Angeles : Envisioning New Educational Futures in Latinx Radical Imaginations

Abstract

Anne-Marie Núñez will apply a lens of convivencia to discuss her research indicating that Hispanic-Serving Institutions can be sites of solidarity and flourishing in computing and technology fields. She will locate this conversation in a Los Angeles area HSI that was initially founded to serve a geographically underserved community and is home to a series of efforts to diversify computer science, one of the most historically competitive and exclusionary fields by race and gender (Mack et al., 2019). Through these efforts, this HSI is expanding opportunities for its local community of primarily Latinx, Black, and low-income residents. For twenty years, faculty here have partnered with other HSIs around the country, public and private funders, industry, and non-profits to develop culturally-sustaining (Paris & Alim, 2014) computing and technology education environments of multidimensional academic, financial, social, cultural, and career support (Nunez, 2022).


Faculty and leaders at this institution have challenged hierarchical ways of promoting student success by cultivating “communities of empowerment” (Perez et al., 2025). Rather than framing students as passive recipients of an establishing departmental culture, this approach invites students to be key agents in shaping inclusive departmental cultures.


In honing its organizational approach, this HSI computing department has utilized resources to engage students in co-creating inclusive STEM environments through mutually reinforcing relationships and practices, such as culturally sustaining curricular structures, pedagogical approaches, and co-curricular activities (e.g., financial support for professional clubs, undergraduate research opportunities, and professional conference attendance).


For example, in a club to promote community and belonging in this computing department, Latinx and other students collaborated to design their own unique conferences and identify developmental opportunities for one another to learn rapidly changing technology and programming languages. Together, these students planned a conference that drew 300 attendees from seven campuses, with well-known public and professional figures speaking and representatives from many industries attending. Beyond event preparation, students discussed with one another how to prepare for interacting with employers and how to handle interviews. Eventually, many of them obtained internships and jobs from their participation in their conference. Even though they jokingly referred to themselves as a “bunch of introverts,” they noted one another’s strengths and encouraged each other in their classes and in their professional aspirations. Coming from and attending college in a less wealthy, historically underserved area of Los Angeles, these students shared that, in the words of one, “We are bringing here what the rich kids at rich schools get.” In their collaboration, these students challenged competitive norms of computing and technology fields through convivencia, collaborating across their different backgrounds to encourage one another’s success and to bring opportunities to their peers at their historically under-resourced university.


An approach of convivencia and collaboration disrupts norms in computing and technology fields that have perpetuated algorithms of oppression (Noble, 2018) and limited racially minoritized groups’ life opportunities in domains like education, employment, voting, law, and criminal justice (Benjamin, 2019; Buolamini & Gebru, 2018; Noble, 2018). It will take novel approaches to forging solidarity, grounded in plural Latinx epistemologies and practices, to challenge the dehumanizing potential of rapidly developing technologies like AI and data science. Examining convivencia in action at HSIs illustrates new possibilities for disrupting potentially negative applications of technology and affirming the contributions of communities that, in the words of one student, “challenge what the bad guys do.”

Author

• Anne-Marie Nunez, University of Texas - El Paso