Diversity Barriers in K-12 Computer Science Education: Structural and Social

In this episode I unpack Wang and Moghadam’s (2017) publication titled “Diversity barriers in K-12 computer science education: Structural and social,” which describes potential structural and social barriers for Black, Hispanic, and female students in K-12 contexts.

Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of the podcast has been
alternating between an interview with a
guest or multiple guests and a solo
episode where unpack some scholarship
in this week's particular episode i am
unpacking the paper titled
diversity barriers and k-12 computer
science education
goldman structural and social
now this paper was written by jennifer
wang and seppere hijazi moghadam
apologies if i mispronounced names
here's the abstract for this particular
paper
quote as computer science cs education
expands at the k-12 level
we must be careful to ensure that cs
neither exacerbates existing equity gaps
in education
nor hinders efforts to diversify the
field of cs
in this paper we discuss structural and
social barriers that influence blacks
hispanics and girls based on surveys of
and 2 307 superintendents in the united
states
we find that despite high interest in cs
among black and hispanic students and
parents
these students experience greater
structural barriers in accessing
computers and cs classes than white
students
and while girls have the same access as
boys social barriers exist with girls
reporting
lower awareness of cs opportunities
outside of classes
less encouragement from teachers and
parents and less exposure to cs role
models in the media
it is critical for expanding cs
opportunities to address the unique
issues for each group
end quote as always you can find a
direct link to this paper in the show
notes and if you click on the author
last names it'll
take you to their google scholar profile
where you can read more publications
that they have written
to find those you can go to
jaredaler.com and click on the podcast
tab
or simply clicking the link in the
description on the app that you're
listening to this on
all right so in the introduction and
relevance section of this paper the
authors are describing how
cs is a relatively new subject area
in k-12 education and i would add
especially in the elementary areas
and because it is not required for every
student to take this class
it can create some gaps in terms of who
ends up taking it or who knows they can
take this kind of course
and why so for example the authors
mentioned quote
blacks and hispanics make up 13.3
percent and 17.6 percent of the us
population
end quote that's from page 615
however when we look at the ap computer
science a tests in 2015 we see that
quote
only 3.9 percent were black and 9.2
percent were hispanic
end quote and they also included lower
pass rates within those groups
the authors also mentioned that among
women there's been a drop
in enrollment numbers in like university
courses for computer
science so for example in 1984 37
of cs degree earners were women
but at the time of this publication only
were cs degree owners in addition going
back to the ap
test results only 21.9 of
students were women now the authors note
that there are many
social influences that can inform
whether somebody wants to go into it so
for example
parents may encourage some students to
go into a field
or area of study or end up discouraging
them in addition teachers can also do
that
or even just general social perceptions
so for example how people
are portrayed in media and have an
influence on it so as i've talked about
in previous podcasts if
only white or asian males are portrayed
as computer scientists
then people might look at those examples
of media and say oh well i don't see
myself in there because i don't identify
as a white or asian male
so quote the purpose of this study was
to better understand the existing
context
and barriers in order to inform efforts
to broaden participation
in quote okay so that quote was from
page 616.
so the methods section of this
particular paper highlights
how they obtained all the data for this
there's a variety of data sources as i
mentioned in the abstract
they interviewed a bunch of students
parents teachers principals and
superintendents
these interviews were about 10 minutes
in length over the phone but then
specifically with the principals and
superintendents they had web-based
survey that were filled out
all of the results were weighted to kind
of account for different things
for example matching like age gender
education
race ethnicity etc depending on location
in the united states
so this is supposed to give a sampling
of information or perspectives from
across the united states specifically
around the
structural and social barriers or
diversity
all right so here is the very first
paragraph on the results section
this is from page 617 quote we found
that the structural barriers in
access and exposure to cs and technology
were varied for blacks
hispanics and whites while social
barriers of perceptions
and encouragement were not seen to be
differentiating factors by race or
ethnicity
on the other hand social barriers seemed
to be stronger for girls while
structural barriers did not differ
significantly by gender
unquote alright so i gotta admit while
reading through this results section i
highlighted pretty much the entire
section so i'm gonna do my best to not
repeat back everything because i do
recommend that you actually go and read
this paper
and i'm going to kind of highlight some
of the results that really stood out
or were a particular interest to me it
might be helpful
to you and your classroom or the kids
that you work with
so when it came to interest in computer
science it was interesting that they
found that 31
of black and 35 percent of hispanic
students
indicated that they're interested in
learning computer science however only
of white students indicated they're
interested in learning computer science
that is fascinating because as i
mentioned media tends to portray
white or asian males
as being a computer scientist now when
it comes to gender
specifically along the binary of male
and female
the authors did not include non-binary
or trans individuals
they found that 34 of boys were
interested
in learning computer science however
only 16
of girls were interested in learning
computer science and if we look at the
negative answer to that so
students were not at all interested in
learning computer science they found
that 24
of girls were not at all interested in
learning computer science and 13
the boys were not at all interested in
learning computer science now that is
also fascinating and
in particular i'm curious to know why is
it that
these were the results and the authors
provide some suggestions but i have some
my own lingering questions or thoughts
that i'll share towards the end
all right now when it came to race or
ethnicity the authors
found that white individuals were more
likely
to have an adult in their life who works
with
computers we're more likely to use
computers
at school and we're more likely to use
computers at home
than blacks and hispanics now on some of
these the percentages were relatively
minor so for example like 68
of white students versus 65 of black
students
for having an adult at home but then
others are more
drastic of a difference in that so for
example in that same question
only 49 of hispanics felt that there was
an adult
in their life who worked with computers
or different types of technology
now the authors note that quote less
computer use corresponded with lower
confidence in cs
end quote from page 617 which makes
sense the more you are able to use your
computer
the more experience you're able to have
with it the more likely
my guess is that you'd be able to
develop confidence in using that thing
if you do something infrequently odds
are you're not going to be as confident
with it as if you do something
frequently so if you cook a meal once a
month
you're probably not going to be as
confident as somebody who cooks a meal
every single night and if you don't know
how to cook a meal i highly recommend
learning
because it saves you money and it could
be healthier now in addition to having
access to
adults or to devices and how that
corresponds with confidence
the authors also looked at having access
to classes and how that kind of impacted
an interest in wanting to learn computer
science
and they basically found that the more
access there were to classes the more
likely
students were interested in learning
computer science however they did find
that
quote black students are less likely
than white or hispanic students to have
access
in quote from page 618 so even though as
i mentioned earlier
it might be more interested in doing
computer science
the results from this particular survey
found that they are less likely to have
access to be able to do computer science
now one kind of random question that i
have about that is i wonder if
by having more opportunities for
computer science if students realize
you know what it's not for me i'm i'm
not interested in computer science as a
field
but i don't know because that wasn't the
purpose of this particular
survey so the authors also asked a
question about
how people learn computer science so for
example did you learn it in a class at
school
on your own online in a group or club or
in a formal group outside of school
now what's interesting is most of the
respondents said that they
learned it in school so there's about a
two percent spread between
each of the three racial ethnic
demographics there's also about a
five percent spread on whether or not a
student learned on their own
there's about a one percent spread for
students learning online
but then when we get to the in group or
club
or learning it in an informal group
outside of school
there's a huge spread on this so in the
group or the club
group over club 34
of black students learned in a grouper
club and 41 of hispanics learned in a
group or
club so that was a 23 point spread
across the percentages
on that one now the formal group outside
of school
black students learned within
a formal group and then 21 of hispanic
students learned
in a formal group outside of school that
has a 25 point difference in the
percentages on that particular answer
that is interesting and here's a quote
on this from page 618
quote it is important to note that black
and hispanic students who have learned
cs are still twice as likely to have
learned
in a class at school as through these
out of school means
we see that black and hispanic students
are more likely than white students
to participate in out-of-school programs
end quote that's really interesting
and i'm really curious well why is that
so if anyone is a researcher and is
listening to this
who's also interested in that i'd be
curious to know
or if anyone can point to some more
research that i could unpack
in a future episode i'd be happy to do
that okay so here's another quote from
page 618
a couple sentences long but is really
interesting quote
black and hispanic students were more
likely than white students to report a
parent has told them
it would be good at cs 40 of black
and 41 of hispanic students compared to
this corroborates other data that show
that black and hispanic parents are more
likely than white parents to want their
children to learn cs
and i believe their child will learn cs
and 53 of hispanic versus 24 percent of
white parents
in contrast to black students we do see
lower confidence in learning cs among
hispanic students
percent of black
and 56 percent of white students are
very confident
end quote so that's really interesting
i'm curious why it is
that black and hispanics parents are
more likely to encourage students to go
into it i wonder if it has to do with
money
and the idea of job access because
there's all these unmet jobs
but that's just a guess i have no idea
because this is a survey of lots of
people all right so here's kind of a
summary from page 618
quote well black and hispanic students
have less access to computers at home
and
in school they and their parents report
more interest in learning cs
hispanic students do not have less
access to cs classes
but they are less likely to know an
adult working in technology and less
likely to be confident
in learning cs and black students do not
report less encouragement
less often seeing people in the media
like themselves engaged in cs
or less confidence yet both of these
groups are underrepresented among apcs
participants
cs bachelor's degree earners and the cs
workforce
end quote really interesting findings
and i'm curious why it is that
although they're more interested in it
they're less likely to get a degree or
take ap
classes the question would be why
okay so the next section of the results
section
is specifically talking about gender
again so the authors only talk about
male and female they do not talk about
non-binary or trans individuals
but i will talk a little bit about that
later and the authors found that
quote besides the mandatory
participation in classes
girls are less likely to be aware of
optional learning opportunities when it
comes to cs
end quotes from page 619 here's another
quote from the same page
quote when looking at students who have
learned cs again
there is no difference by gender for the
most commonly reported way of learning
cs
through a class in school however boys
are more likely than girls to have
learned cs in other opportunities
outside of a class
again this confirms that when the
opportunity is not necessarily part of a
regular or required component
girls are less likely to participate
this also means that boys are spending
more of their own free time learning cs
possibly contributing to preparatory
privilege as they become more
experienced and knowledgeable than other
students
unquote now interestingly the amount of
encouragement
that boys received versus what girls
received was pretty drastically
different so for example
they would be good at cs whereas only 12
of girls were told that it would be good
at cs by
a teacher a similar spread was found
among parents so 43 of boys were told by
a parent that they'd be good at computer
science but only 17 percent of girls
were told
it would be good at computer science by
a parent now the authors
also asked questions about gender
representation
in media and they found that only 11
percent of girls
felt that they were represented in
computer scientists within media
but 21 percent of boys felt that they
were represented
in computer scientists that are
portrayed via media
and then if we go to the extreme end of
it where they were never likely to see
someone who looked like themselves
themselves in
computer scientists in media and only 18
of boys
so that they never saw themselves in
computer scientists portrayed in media
so those are pretty stark differences so
here's a final quote from page 619
quote with gender we saw that girls have
lower confidence in their ability to
learn cs
report less interest in learning cs and
are less likely to have learn cs
compared to boys
furthermore we found that students who
are more interested in learning cs
are also more likely to believe they
will have a job using cs with boys more
likely to believe so
for girls access may not be the
challenge instead the belief that girls
are less likely to be interested in cs
may result in them receiving less
encouragement from parents and teachers
which in turn exacerbates girls beliefs
that they do not belong in cs
end quote all right so that concludes
like the main findings of this
particular study however
there was a bunch more that i ended up
not talking about
because i would have basically read the
entire thing out loud to you
so i highly recommend actually going and
reading this paper which again i link to
in the show notes
all right as always in these unpacking
scholarship episodes i like to talk
about some lingering questions or
thoughts
just thinking out loud and not
critiquing the authors in any way
because i really enjoyed their paper
so the first question that i have is if
everyone within a demographic category
participates in cs as part of a
mandatory class
but only a subset of the demographic
chooses to further their learning
outside of the class
why is that so for example if boys girls
non-binary trans individuals are all
required to take a class
but only let's say the non-binary and
trans individuals decide that they want
to continue to learn computer science
outside of class why would that be what
about for the students who chose not to
continue their learning outside of class
is because the subject area in general
is considered to be boring to them
does it have to do with how it was
taught or how the curricula was used or
what was in the curriculum
i actually do unpack some papers that
talk about that a little bit more
so i'll link to those in the show notes
now i asked this because it's important
to look at the differences among
demographic information or at least it
can be
but what's really important is once we
find differences we need to ask the
follow-up question of why
why is that why is it that some people
are really interested
in this subject area or approach or
curriculum or whatever
and other people less so another
question that i have is if non-binary
individuals were also included in this
survey
how would the results potentially change
the rationales for the findings
so in particular the idea that because
people don't see themselves in media
they can't imagine themselves doing
computer science
what does that mean for trans
individuals who are often excluded from
media or
discourse entirely so for example they
weren't mentioned in this paper
do trans or non-binary individuals tend
to fall within the results of the sex
that was assigned at birth
do they tend to group with the
perspectives of the gender they most
identify with
or is it something completely different
and as a non-binary individual
i'm genuinely curious about this and i
really wish more researchers would
actually include
perspectives outside the gender binary
so if we could do a follow-up study
similar to this one
please include non-binary and trans
individuals the last question that i
have is what other ways
might we address demographic imbalances
in cs education and cs as a field
so for example in addition to continuing
to elevate the voices of
marginalized individuals and groups what
if we also challenge the assumption that
you have to see yourself
represented within a career before you
can believe you can do that career
or instead of thinking about in career
just think of it as a hobby or a leisure
pursuit so for example
my parents said that i could be anything
if i put my mind to it
but it doesn't sound like that's what
many of the survey respondents believe
and it's likely a result because they
weren't really encouraged that
they could do anything like computer
science
so again representation is very
important i'm not saying we shouldn't
focus on that
i'm just thinking out loud what if we
also encouraged a growth mindset
and encourage kids to pursue their
interests regardless of if they see
other people like them doing what
they're interested in
so if we could couple that approach with
approach of elevating more voices
having more representation how might
that be able to impact
demographic imbalances again this is
just me thinking out loud
if there is research on that i would
love to read it so please let me know by
pressing the contact me button on my
website all right so those are just kind
of my
lingering thoughts and questions for
this particular paper again i really
enjoyed it
i don't know if they've done a follow-up
study on this as this was published in
but i highly recommend everybody
checking it out which again you can find
at jrdelivery.com
or clicking the link in the show notes
for the app that you're listening to
this on
thank you so much for listening to this
particular episode if you enjoyed it
please consider sharing with somebody
else
and stay tuned next week for an
interview hope you're all staying safe
and are having a wonderful week

Article

Wang, J., & Moghadam, S. H. (2017). Diversity barriers in K-12 computer science education: Structural and social. Proceedings of the Conference on Integrating Technology into Computer Science Education, ITiCSE, 615–620.

Abstract

“As computer science (CS) education expands at the K-12 level, we must be careful to ensure that CS neither exacerbates existing equity gaps in education nor hinders efforts to diversify the field of CS. In this paper, we discuss structural and social barriers that influence Blacks, Hispanics, and girls, based on surveys of 1,672 students, 1,677 parents, 1,008 teachers, 9,805 principals, and 2,307 superintendents in the United States. We find that despite higher interest in CS among Black and Hispanic students and parents, these students experience greater structural barriers in accessing computers and CS classes than White students. And while girls have the same access as boys, social barriers exist with girls reporting lower awareness of CS opportunities outside of classes, less encouragement from teachers and parents, and less exposure to CS role models in the media. It is critical for expanding CS opportunities to address the unique issues for each group.”

Author Keywords

Diversity, gender, girls, race, ethnicity, Black, African American, Latino/a, Hispanic, K-12, pre-university, students, parents, teachers, interest, access, exposure, perceptions, encouragement, pathways

My One Sentence Summary

This publication describes potential structural and social barriers for Black, Hispanic, and female students in K-12 contexts.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

If everyone within a demographic category participates in CS as part of mandatory classes, but only a subset of the demographic chooses to further their learning outside of the class, why is that?
If non-binary individuals were also included in this survey, how would their results potentially change the rationales for the findings?
What other ways might we address demographic imbalances in CS education and CS as a field?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

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