Examining Early Elementary Computer Science Identity Repertoires within a Curriculum: Implications for Epistemologically Pluralistic Identities

In this episode I unpack Richard and Kayumova (2022) publication titled “Examining early elementary computer science identity repertoires within a curriculum: Implications for epistemologically pluralistic identities,” which analyzes how a curriculum can implicitly communicate what computer scientists do.

Curricula can implicitly communicate
what computer scientists do how well the
paper titled examining Early Elementary
computer science identity repertoires
within a curriculum colon implications
for epistemologically pluralistic
identities this paper was written by
Eleanor Richard and Chuck nozza kayamova
apologies have I mispronounced any names
here's the abstract for this paper quote
as computer science CS enters an
increasing number of Elementary
classrooms researchers must investigate
the representations of What kinds of
people are presented as doing computer
science within CS curriculum in this
paper we explore a widely used freely
accessible web-based Early Elementary CS
curriculum to examine the kinds of
identity repertoires behaviors actions
skills and socio-emotional Norms that
are promoted as a representative of
being becoming a CS person more
specifically we draw on identity studies
and employ critical discourse analysis
to examine how the kinds of norms and
repertoires of Cs practice made
available in the curricular materials
might construct a particular account of
experiences as as representative of
being and enacting identities in
computer science and in doing so produce
certain accounts of who a CS person is
our analysis shows that the curricular
materials May construct an identity of a
computer science person as someone who
is able to solve a puzzle correctly
persist through challenges connect to
their feelings and work with peers while
this curriculum promotes skills norms
and repertoires of Cs practice align
with State Standards our findings
suggests that it does not appear to
present varied and flexible notion of
what it means to engage in or be become
a CS person end quote now you can find a
direct link to this paper at
jaredleary.com or you can simply click
the link in the app that you're
listening to the song and it'll take you
to the show notes directly for this
paper now before we begin with the
introduction this paper I just want to
say that this podcast is a podcast that
explores Computer Science Education
across all grade levels and is either an
interview with a guest or multiple
guests or a solo episode like this where
it unpacks some scholarship and try and
relate it to practices in computer
science education my name is Jared Leary
and I have where worked with evergrade
kindergarten through doctoral students
so I've seen a variety of contexts and
will try and talk about how you might
apply some of these understandings in
the various papers that I unpack in
relation to different contexts in K-12
or in higher education settings alright
so the introduction of this paper the
authors talk about how computer science
is a relatively new field for many
teachers many Educators like including
myself my backgrounds in music education
before I switched over into Computer
Science Education and this makes it so
that many new to CS teachers are having
to rely on curricula to figure out some
different pedagogical approaches for
computer science so not only is it
content knowledge that teachers are
learning but also the pedagogies
involved with how to teach different
ideas or concepts practices
understandings Etc now I mentioned this
in other podcast episodes that the type
of curriculum that you're using will
kind of represent different things so it
might represent who is able to engage in
computer science or what a computer
scientist actually does so here's a
quote from page two quote who or what
kinds of people are represented as doing
CS with in the curricular context what
ways of knowing and being norms and
repertoires of Cs practice are promoted
as legitimate within the curricular
texts as walkerdine argues practices
within the text itself have relational
effects that Define who and what we are
power operates through discursive
constructions of the text by creating
boundaries inclusions and exclusions
about what is considered to be
legitimate repertoires of Cs practice
and what is not as Wortham highlights
the types of people and the types of
learning experiences presented in the
discourses of a curriculum have the
power to strongly affect the
construction of students identities such
questions about children's is identity
development regarding CS can be seen in
a growing field of research focused on
youth identity development in stem as
eisenhart and Alan emphasize stem
learning environments teaching practices
and constructed narratives have the
power to both expand Notions of what CS
is and broaden our constrained Notions
of who does can do CS therefore through
the discourses presented or emitted
within a curriculum education channel
settings can Define what kinds of people
or identities can gain legitimate access
to CS end quote so I've talked about
this in other episodes on curriculum and
like integration and whatnot which I
link to in the show notes at
jaredelary.com curricula can have a
profound impact on what people consider
to be normal within a field both in
terms of who is in the field and what
those people end up doing so for example
if we engaged in a computer science
class and the only thing you did is
programming then a student might walk
away from that and go oh computer
science means programming and it might
ignore cyber security it might ignore
networking might ignore data analysis
all sorts of other things if those are
not also discussed that may or may not
be a bad thing depending on the end
goals of what you want the student to
walk away with whether you're working
with them for a semester or for like 12
years or however long you happen to be
working with them depending on your
teaching context
the point is what is taught and what is
explored or expressed within a classroom
is often very different than the entire
realm that can be done also known as the
null curriculum the null curriculum is
what is not taught inside of a classroom
when it comes to computer science where
you focus your attention can have a
profound impact on students identities
and ways of being how will this paper
kind of explores that and talks about it
so let's get into this a little bit more
so this paper focuses on two main areas
and this is a quote from page two quote
one how within the discourses of an
elementary computer science curriculum
the identity of a CS person is presented
and two which within the discourses of
an elementary CS curriculum identities
are shown as participating in CS or put
in the language of early Elementary
schoolers what fills in the blank for
young children in the statement a CS
person is someone who blank end quote
now the course that they happen to be
looking at is from code.org and this is
for ages five through eight this is
called course B so the next main section
of this paper is on the conceptual
framework and literature review so the
first subsection is identity within
computer science curriculum so they talk
about how computer science curricula and
course materials Etc can have a profound
impact on shaping classroom pedagogies
and as well as like student identity and
whatnot here's an interesting quote from
page three quote woven through these
educational resources are discourses
that have the power to affirm maintain
or create new accepted understandings of
Cs identity through their stated and
implied examples of who is Slash what
kind of persons actions and abilities
are considered to be doing CS end quote
and so the authors kind of cite some
literature talking about how
historically speaking CS kind of
emphasizes some certain demographics and
ways of being more than others if you're
interested in learning more about that
in a similar domain in maker culture
check out podcast 18 which is the
episode titled making through the lens
of culture and power colon toward
transformative Visions for educational
Equity it's a really important paper
that kind of like discusses some of the
things that are mentioned here in fact
the authors of this paper are citing
that paper the next subsection in this
area talks about critical discourse
analysis and so the authors actually
cite a variety of people that I've have
studied like Fair Cloud G Etc like G I
actually took a discourse analysis
course from so critical discourse
analysis kind of unpacks language
discourse text whatever there's many
different ways of doing this to kind of
better understand some kind of a topic
phenomena Etc there's a variety of
approaches to discourse analysis whether
it's critical discourse analysis there's
also like I did Corpus the assisted
discourse analysis for my dissertation
which is more catered towards looking at
a large corpora so I looked at 11
million words of data and found patterns
and then conducted a discourse analysis
on those patterns of that data but then
there's even discourse analysis that can
be done on like body language it's a
really fascinating field that is often
not discussed when people think of
research they think of qualitative
research and quantitative research but
what about Corpus assisted discourse
analysis which is it is it qualitative
is it quantitative like it's not really
clear critical discourse analysis I kind
of view is more of a separate entity
from those two main categories that
probably closer aligns to qualitative
research than it is quantitative but it
really depends on what kind of discourse
analysis you're doing if you want to
learn more about it I highly recommend
checking out this little subsection or
reading the methodology section of my
dissertation which can be found in the
publication section on my website and
yes the dissertation is free so I'm not
trying to sell you anything I will leave
you with one more quote from page four
this kind of summarizes this section so
quote the discourse is found in
educational resources construct and
present subjectivity's specific
perspectives convictions and beliefs
around social political and economic
relations of power and knowledge to
students and critical discourse analysis
is a useful tool in revealing these
subjectivities and finding meaningful
relationships between these resources
and social practices now the next main
section is on the framework and
methodology so they talk about how they
try to select different curricular
materials and so they looked mainly at
code.org and scratch Junior and they
ultimately decided to go with code.org
they explain why in that section and
then they talk about well how did they
do critical discourse analysis so if you
want to learn more about that take a
look at that I don't think that's
necessarily interesting for this
particular audience although I am a nerd
and enjoyed reading through this because
again I like discourse analysis I think
it's a fascinating way to look at
different things in society and actually
highly recommend that the field of
Computer Science Education actually
explore discourse analysis techniques
some more because there's a lot of
really cool things that can be done
related to equity work and unpacking
like oppression and how we might uh
improve things for different identities
marginalized groups Etc so if you
haven't taken a look at discourse
analysis uh do some investigation learn
some more about it I include a ton of
links in my dissertation which again is
available for free in the publication
section or Linked In the show notes just
go to chapter 3 which is the methodology
section the next section is the findings
so here are the four main themes that
can be found this is from page five
quote one a CS person is someone who is
able to solve a puzzle correctly two a
CS person is someone who persists
through challenges three a CS person is
someone who is connected to their
feelings four a CS person is someone who
works verbally with peers and Co now
that may sound great but it also can be
problematized again this is critical
discourse analysis not just discourse
analysis we're trying to critique things
and really kind of understand some of
the potential downsides to discourse so
the first subsection under the findings
is on a computer science person is
someone who is able to solve a puzzle
correctly so the authors talk about how
this curricular unit basically leads
students down a path where they are
solving a series of puzzles that kind of
increase in complexity from very simple
to more complex depending on what is
being introduced in that particular unit
now the puzzles have one correct answer
in order to solve it and the lesson
plans and the curricular materials
really emphasize the correct nature of
solving these puzzles so if you solve a
puzzle in a way that uses more blocks
than you should then that is considered
to be incorrect and so It'll ask you to
redo this so that way you can solve it
correctly and that's with like air
quotes
um correctly here's a quote from page
six quote statements like this in the
curriculum appear to normalize
technocentric view of a CS person as
someone who solves problems in a way
that is devoid of significant variation
in order to be correct end quote you
might be like okay well that sounds fine
like don't we want students to be able
to solve problems yeah I agree we should
here's a quote from page seven that we
might need to consider quote these
puzzles might not be culturally relevant
to some students lives within code.org's
course B when students are asked to
complete puzzles that included people
they were focusing largely on
agricultural or rural themes asking
students to create Loops to harvest corn
to create a program to draw a garden or
to mine stones with as few blocks as
possible these types of activities do
not make a connection to the lives of
students living in non-rural or
non-agricultural areas and make no
effort to connect to others interests of
students to give them agency or
opportunity to see themselves as CS
people end quote now if you listen to
episode 150 which is titled fostering
intersectional identities through
rhizomatic learning you'll learn more
about how John Stapleton and I kind of
conceive of curriculum as an opportunity
to engage in hyper local and
hyper-individualized explorations of a
domain in this case in computer science
rather than making those so that
everybody is solving the same puzzle in
the same way what we encourage is
creating projects or experiences or
opportunities for expression that are
individualized to each student while
some students might be interested in
this like rural or agricultural content
other students might not so we need to
give students the opportunity to explore
variegated interests and if you want to
learn more about that again check out
episode 150 which I do link to in the
show notes at geraldleary.com but I
guess a main point from the authors
might be that okay well solving problems
is not inherently a bad thing but it's
the kind of problems that are being
solved if everybody's solving the same
kind of a problem as opposed to people
getting to choose what kind of problems
they solve that might actually be
relevant to themselves or the
communities that they live in those are
two very different things so on the
surface it might be cool that students
are learning to problem solve but if we
look at how they are doing that it might
not be it depends on the goals of
yourself as an educator or the students
that you you are working with right so
the second main finding in this section
a computer science person is someone who
persists through challenges
interestingly the authors note that it's
one of the few words that students
actually have to like verbally restate
so in the lesson plans the students are
asked to learn how to say the word
persistence and the authors note that
the lessons like frequently bring this
word up while this might not be a bad
thing to have persistence it's again
going back to the null curriculum what
other words are not being emphasized or
what other ways of being are not being
emphasized but unpack that a little bit
more later in this episode so the next
theme is a computer science person is
someone who is connected to their
feelings so the authors note that this
curricular unit and the lessons are
frequently asking kids to kind of like
notice reflect on examine and share
their feelings throughout the processes
so as an example on page 10 they have a
screenshot of the feeling faces which
have like different basically like
little smiley faces and a word
underneath it so the words are these are
the different feelings that you can
select from are great good okay bad sad
angry frustrated and confused now the
office note that frustration is a
feeling that is frequently brought up in
the curricular units itself so here's an
interesting quote from page nine this is
a really good point quote the absence of
attention to other emotions within the
curriculum solidifies a single dominant
Narrative of frustrated CS people within
this curriculum other feelings that can
be associated with cs such as excitement
Joy or Pride are not mentioned in this
text introduced by the teacher nor shown
as feeling faces end quote a little bit
further down quote thus a student who
feels frustration while coding is doing
CS but does not acknowledge students who
find Joy or excitement in the creating
and doing of coding end quote that's a
really interesting point now I had a
professor in a curriculum class it was
talking about assessment and how that is
interesting that we don't actually
assess whether or not students enjoy the
content that they are learning or the
experiences that they are engaging in
and that this is like really telling of
the things that we are focusing on so
the author is bringing up that hey joy
and excitement is not a part of the
feeling faces well that kind of like
Narrows the scope of ways that students
can express themselves or kind of see
themselves as computer scientists now I
will say as a practitioner one really
quick way that you can kind of get
around this limitation with this like
narrow scope is just simply say what
other feelings might you be experiencing
that are not on the feeling faces card
that you have so a student might be able
to draw their own emoji face or they
might be able to just verbally say I
feel happy or I feel great or I feel
bored or whatever the emotion is that
might not be on the cards that they are
using so my point is like yes this is an
interesting point but we don't have to
be limited by the choices that are given
now the last theme that they uncover is
that a computer science person is
someone who verbally works with peers
now having worked on standards and like
used them a lot within the lesson plans
that I've written or in developing
standards like there are often one or
more standards that are related to
communicating and collaborating around
Computing so whether you can communicate
indicating the things that you worked on
to other people or you were in
collaboration with people who are
working on similar projects or the same
project most standards have that
somewhere written in them so not only
does this curriculum emphasize that but
it might also be influenced by like the
layer above which are the standards that
often influence the curriculum that is
then being taught in the classroom which
then impacts what students learn within
the classroom and again I talk about
this more in some of the podcast
episodes on curriculum integration and
how there are different layers of
curriculum that we can look at for
example there's the intended curriculum
there's the curriculum there's the
experience curriculum there is the null
curriculum the hidden curriculum like
there's many different layers that you
can get into if you want to nerd out on
curricular Theory so check out episode
and social integration Styles and their
implications for computer science or
check out episode 125 images of
curriculum or episode 126 contemporary
venues of curriculum inquiry all three
of those are really interesting ways to
you can consider curricula and
curriculum integration and again I link
to all of them in the show notes at
jaredoleery.com now one of the other
things that is really interesting that
they point out is that the curriculum
really emphasizes collaboration with
peers so asking a peer for help rather
than asking a teacher on one hand this
makes it really easy for the teacher so
that way they're not having to respond
to every single question that might come
up so that's kind of like just generally
makes life easier but another way that
you can look at that from a more
critical view is that it makes it so
that the teacher doesn't really need to
know much to be able to solve these
particular problems computer science
curriculum is often criticized as like
leaving the teacher out of things and
making so that it's like oh look you
don't even need a teacher you can just
hire a paraprofessional at like half the
cost and then they can run your computer
science class well yeah that might be
true depending on how you design the
curriculum it really takes away the
ability to adjust things individually
for students because instead they're
just following a curriculum like online
and it's just that may or may not
actually relate to students interests
but if you do have somebody who is an
expert in content area and expert in
pedagogy once both of those things are
combined then they can actually
customize the learning experiences to
each individual which again I talk about
in other episodes and the alphabeters in
this section by saying that hey this
kind of can create a problem if students
are unable to communicate in their own
languages so it reinforces dominant
language and then it can also have a
negative impact on students with some
disabilities if you want to learn more
about that make sure you check out this
section in the paper alright so the next
section of this paper is the discussion
section here's a quote from page 11.
quote our analysis shows that the
repertoires of Cs practice and the kinds
of sales identities constructed and
produced through activities behaviors
and representations and code.org course
B curricular materials present a
somewhat narrow conception of the Cs
person someone who collaborates in the
dominant language persists through
frustration while feeling little Joy or
pride in their work and is able to
correctly solve a puzzle in the same way
as their peers end quote and the word
correctly is in air quotes again you
might be like well this isn't
necessarily a bad thing they kind of
unpack some of the perceived problems
with this so here's a quote again from
page 11 quote as vesogi at all argue if
teachers respond to students frustration
with an instance that students persist
then teachers forfeit the opportunity to
interpret these moments as an indication
of what needs pedagogical attention or
curricular change the broader context of
educational Injustice therefore has
consequences for how practices such as
iteration are conceptualized and
mediated end quote and a little bit
further down on the same page quote by
valuing only one preferred form of Cs
practice or expression one which signals
a particular form of a repertoire of Cs
practice as a representative measure of
learnness's CS engagement and identity
this curriculum does not make space for
a pluralistic understanding of Cs
knowledge and coding end quote and
pluralistic epistemologies and whatnot
that is something from turkle and papert
if you want to learn more about that
there are is a link to that paper in the
publication itself in the references
these are some really interesting points
that resonates with me again gone back
to that paper that I talked about with
fostering intersectional identities that
collaborated with John Stapleton on we
really emphasize the importance of hyper
local educational experiences where
students are able to go in whatever
Direction they'd like to explore through
with guidance from peers from teachers
from resources Etc but they ultimately
choose where they are going what they
are working on in the past they take to
get there this is very different than
what you can do with the curriculum
where everybody is solving the same
puzzle in the same way by emphasizing
frustration on one hand from a
curriculum development standpoint it
might be useful for teachers who are
brand new to go oh this is expected that
students are going to get frustrated
this isn't just going to be sunshine and
rainbows the entire time they're working
on this curricular unit but on the other
hand it's a really important point that
teachers and students are unable to
modify the puzzles that they're
exploring and the problems they are
trying to solve to match the frustration
level or the ability level of students
who are working on the computer science
projects or puzzles rather so in the
final section the conclusion the authors
basically End by saying hey we need to
have more epistemologically pluralistic
identities and again this deciding
turtle and pampert so you can read more
about this if you're interested in that
maybe I'll actually read that particular
paper and do an unpacking scholarship
episode down the road stay tuned but
here's a quote that I want to leave you
with on page 12. quote if the curriculum
asks for teachers to privilege dominant
neurocentric repertoires of Cs practice
as the only legitimate Act of doing of
computer science we run the risk of
devaluing but a diverse and complex ways
of doing being and knowing that are
present in our classrooms end quote
that's a great quote I love it it
actually leads into the next section
which these unpacking scholarship
episodes I like to talk about some
lingering questions and thoughts that I
have when reading a paper so the first
question that I have is if researchers
were to analyze the discourse you use
when teaching what themes might emerge
and I don't mean that in a judgmental
way I mean you could actually do this
I've done it myself where I would go
back in can like look at the transcript
of like a lesson that I taught and then
be like oh wow I really focus on this
thing or I really talk about this thing
in a very specific way and kind of
unpack some of the things that are
intentionally or unintentionally left
out and problematize should those things
have been in there whether it be like
different practices or different
identities or whatever but a follow-up
question to that might be how might that
compare or contrast with your own
philosophy of education so one of the
things that like you might realize if
you were to analyze your own teaching is
that your own understanding of education
and your philosophy behind that might
not necessarily align with the things
you are doing instead what you might be
doing is how you were taught both the
good and bad things sometimes I'd
realize that when a student was like I
don't want to do this thing and I'd sit
back and look at it and go well why am I
making them do that I go oh wait that
doesn't actually align with the
educational philosophy that I have it
actually aligns with just what I am used
to and what I know it's not necessarily
A Bad Thing That kind of makes it easier
for from an educator standpoint but from
a student's standpoint it's not very
interesting so my educational philosophy
centers around student individualized
interest and happen to be teaching
one-on-one in a group context which I
often describe as facilitating if you
want to learn more about that check out
the podcasts that are tagged with
interest driven learning which I will
link to in the show notes at
jaredolary.com now another question that
I have that I think would be interesting
to actually explore is how might the
curriculum developers respond to this
article so as a former curriculum
developer and a former classroom
educator I can say that I understand the
perspectives of the authors like totally
makes sense but I also understand that
there are so many things that are
intentionally designed into or left out
of curriculum that people who are
reading it might not understand so from
a curriculum development standpoint what
context could the developers provide or
things might they elaborate on that the
authors missed it truly is fascinating
at times like having developed hundreds
of lessons that have been used by tens
of thousands of teachers around the
world the amount of times that I've
actually walked into a classroom or a
conference session where somebody is
teaching a lesson that I wrote and
seeing them teach it in a way that I
really wouldn't do myself and tried to
not encourage in the lesson itself but
they're doing it that way anyways so
even though I tried to over emphasize
like interest driven learning I've seen
people teach some of my lessons in a
very rote way where everybody recreates
the exact same project that I
demonstrated in a video Even though I
will explicitly say make your own
version of this how would you change it
Etc so maybe the author has missed
something but another way of looking at
it is thinking of how the curriculum
developers might have been catering this
to a very specific targeted audience and
the audience of code.org at that grade
level most likely are Educators who have
not taught computer science before so
how much of this was trying to help
those teachers understand what it looks
like when a student so-called succeeds
in a computer science class or in a
problem Etc I say this because new to CS
teachers often go well I don't know what
it means to be a successful computer
science student and that's very fair
judgment that's really good reflection
so maybe the developers are trying to
hold the hand a little bit more then
they might have for teachers who have
been teaching computer science for quite
some time but I don't know another
question that I have related to that is
what other themes would you add so if
you were to look at code.org's
curriculum what are the themes might the
authors have missed or that you might
elaborate on or add to for example some
curricula could emphasize computer
science is something kids can learn but
only if taught by a computer science
expert outside of the classroom or maybe
a theme that students might learn is
that computer science is something that
everybody does at the same Pace to solve
or recreate the same solution to the
same problem or that computer science
isn't used to solve problems relevant to
the learner or the community that they
live in or simply that computer science
solve small problems that exist in
isolation from a web of interconnected
problems these are all other themes that
might emerge from looking at the same
curriculum or just like expanding Beyond
onco.org so I'm not trying to bash on
them some fantastic people who work
there but just puzzle-based Platforms in
general that are focused on
problem-based learning might have all
those themes and more but the last slot
that I have kind of builds off of that
so I think a big part of the critique is
inherent in the epistemological
underpinnings of the curriculum itself
so the curriculum forco.org at that
grade level is from an outside
perspective is this designed to make it
easy for a teacher to get started not to
teach the teacher how to collaboratively
develop individually meaningful projects
with students that's a very different
approach so such an approach takes a lot
of time for teachers and it's just
completely different design for the
curricular materials and themselves then
what is evident on code.org's website
again I don't say this as a critique as
it has helped many people get started
with computer science education but to
point out that this curriculum serves as
an important purpose despite the
critique that I agree with that the
authors do make so I present a critique
and a very useful tool and say that they
both are one and the same code.org has
some great stuff in it some great
content but as with any curriculum
there's things that are left out of it
the more you try and like fine-tune
whatever it is that you're crafting into
your curricular content and make it more
of a one-size-fits all the less likely
it's going to be useful to everybody
that you're working with I know that
there are a lot of really
well-intentioned curricular providers
that are out there that are doing some
different things to try and engage
teachers and students Etc but I will say
that a lot of those providers are doing
in a way tries to make it easier for the
teacher while that sounds great in the
short term what it's really doing is
making it so that the teacher is Reliant
upon the curricular materials developed
by Outsiders this makes it so that you
cannot create curricular content that is
bespoke that is custom made for each
individual that you're working with in
your classroom or classes and it's
basically the idea of giving a person a
fish rather than teaching a person how
to fish in this case giving a teacher a
lesson plan rather than teaching them
how to create a lesson plan with their
own content knowledge and pedagogical
knowledge and community and individual
knowledge of the students that they are
working with that to me is the ideal way
to kind of craft and create curricular
content I tried to do that in the lesson
plans that I previously created I tried
to make it so that here is a model not a
mandate you can take a look at the
project that I made and learn how I did
that cool now do it in your own context
don't like this project fine there's
like 30 more that you can pick from to
be able to work through on your own at
your own pace using the resources that I
have developed it makes it so that it's
easy for the teacher to be able to get
up and running but it also encourages
the teacher to customize every single
project to be able to like Express
themselves and then to use that to talk
to students about how they can customize
these projects to make their own unique
projects in whatever platform you are
doing you can't really do this with
puzzle-based Platformers which is why I
personally prefer project-based
platforms like scratch and scratch
Junior but there's a place for all of
these and depending on whatever your
educational goals are or learning goals
are as either a teacher or a student so
again not trying to bash on anyone at
code.org or any of the other like puzzle
based Platformers out there I understand
that there are many ways to engage in
education and I respect them I just have
my own preferences for the courses that
I've designed and the classes that I've
facilitated and the materials that I've
made for different contacts whether it's
Computer Science Education or music
education if you enjoyed this particular
episode please consider sharing with
somebody else you could simply send a
text to somebody and say hey check out
this episode thank you and enjoy it or
even sharing it on social media it helps
more people find the free computer
science drumming and gaming content on
my website jaredalary.com but stay tuned
next week for another podcast until then
I hope you're all staying safe and are
having a wonderful week

Article

Richard, E., & Kayumova, S. (2022). Examining Early Elementary Computer Science Identity Repertoires within a Curriculum: Implications for Epistemologically Pluralistic Identities. Journal of Computer Science Integration, 5(1): 2, pp. 1–14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26716/jcsi.2022.12.30.36

Abstract

“As computer science (CS) enters an increasing number of elementary classrooms, researchers must investigate the representations of what kinds of people are presented as doing computer science within CS curricula. In this paper, we explore a widely used, freely accessible, web-based, early elementary CS curriculum to examine the kinds of identity repertoires (behaviors, actions, skills, and socioemotional norms) that are promoted as representative of being/becoming a CS person. More specifically, we draw on identity studies and employ critical discourse analysis to examine how the kinds of norms and repertoires of CS practice made available in the curricular materials might construct a particular account of experiences as representative of being and enacting identities in computer science, and in doing so, produce certain accounts of who a CS person is. Our analysis shows that the curricular materials may construct an identity of a computer science person as someone who is able to solve a puzzle correctly, persist through challenges, connect to their feelings, and work with peers. While this curriculum promotes skills, norms, and repertoires of CS practice aligned with state standards, our findings suggest that it does not appear to present varied and flexible notions of what it means to engage in or be/become a CS person.”

Author Keywords

Computer science education, elementary education, curriculum studies, STEM, identity development, critical discourse analysis

My One Sentence Summary

This paper analyzes how a curriculum can implicitly communicate what computer scientists do.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

If researchers were to analyze the discourse you use when teaching, what themes might emerge?
- How might that compare/contrast with your own philosophy of education?
How might the curriculum developers respond to this article?
- What context could the provide or things might they elaborate on that the authors missed?
- What other themes would you add?
I think a big part of the critique is inherent in the epistemological underpinnings of the curriculum itself

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Contemporary Venues of Curriculum Inquiry
  - In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (2008) publication titled “Curriculum inquiry,” which describes different venues or types of curriculum that educators and education researchers should consider.
- Eliminating Gender Bias in Computer Science Education Materials
  - In this episode I unpack Medel and Pournaghshband’s (2017) publication titled “Eliminating gender bias in computer science education materials,” which examines three examples of “how stereotypes about women can manifest themselves through class materials” (p. 411)
- Fostering Intersectional Identities through Rhizomatic Learning
  - In this episode, Jon Stapleton and I read our (2022) publication titled “Fostering intersectional identities through rhizomatic learning,” which uses mapping as a metaphor for individualized learning.
- Images of Curriculum
  - In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (1986) book titled “Curriculum: Perspective, paradigm, and possibility,” which describes different examples, intents, and criticisms of “images” or “characterizations” of curriculum.
- Making Through the Lens of Culture and Power: Toward Transformative Visions for Educational Equity
  - In this episode I unpack Vossoughi, Hooper, and Escudé’s (2016) publication titled “Making through the lens of culture and power: Toward transformative visions for educational equity,” which provides a critique of maker culture discourse in order to "reconceptualize the educational practice of making in ways that place equity at the center" (p. 215).
- The Subservient, Co-equal, Affective, and Social Integration Styles and Their Implications for [Computer Science]
  - In this episode I unpack Bresler’s (1995) publication titled “The subservient, co-equal, affective, and social integration styles and their implications for the arts,” which “examines the different manifestations of arts integration in the operational, day-to-day curriculum in ordinary schools, focusing on the how, the what, and the toward what” (p. 33).
- More episodes related to critical analysis
- More episodes related to curriculum
- More episodes related to discursive identity
- More episodes related to discourse
- More episodes related to interest-driven learning
- All other episodes
If you’re interested, here’s a link to my dissertation
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter